^^m 

^^S^^^^^^^o 

^^^^^^^fes^ 

^^^ 

^%K 

^^M 

^^H 

m 

^^ 

s 

K 

^B 

^^S  s^ixt 

S^^fl  ^ 

MARY  LAKE  MEMORIAL 


^m 


BALLADS  G  SONNETS 


DAIH'E  GABRIEL  SOSSETH 

1/ 


1  <    > 


Portland,  Maine 

THOMAS  B.  MOSHER 

MOCCCCIII 


>^a^  ^^^^_ 


•  •  • 
••  •  • 


DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 

FROM  THE  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  W.  4  0.  DOWNEY 


TO 

THEODORE    WATTS, 

THE   FRIEND   WHOM   MY  VERSE  WON   FOR   ME, 

THESE   FEW  MORE   PAGES 

ARE    AFFECTIONATELY   INSCRIBED 


238858 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 
(A   Canzone) 

OBORN  in  May  and  dead  at  Eastertide, 
O  mournful  nightingale 
That  sang  as  solemn  in  our  English  vale 
As  any  in  the  Italian  country  side. 
Now  comes  the  spring  again, 
When  listeners  hush  and  every  songster  sings ; 
The  swallows  sweep  with  darting  wings 
At  last  and  larks  arise. 
For  spring  is  here  and  only  waits  in  vain 
One  sweeter  note  for  which  we  all  are  fain 
That  sounds  in  Paradise. 

Yea,  thou  art  dead,  nor  hast  thou  any  care 

That  the  first  hawthorn  swells  in  bud  to-night, 

Nor  yet  for  our  despair  ; 

Nor  for  the  songs  that  once  were  thy  delight. 

Whose  singing  wings  shall  never  cease  to  beat 

In  music  strange  and  sweet. 

And  make  a  southern  April  in  our  air. 


IN    MEMORIAM 

But  thou  art  gone  before 

To  that  remote,  eternal,  final  shore 

That  was  thine  unforgotten  goal ; 

And  thou  hast  climbed  the  mount  of  Paradise ; 

And  thy  triumphant  soul, 

With  him  who  living  went  that  way. 

And  him  who  saw  all  Heaven  with  blinded  eyes, 

Rejoices  in  the  day  I 

Rejoice  at  last,  O  souls, 

That  never  were  on  earth  completely  glad 

For  the  full  vision  that  ye  had 

Of  everlasting  things ; 

Now  sing  within  your  shining  aureoles 

And  strike  the  golden  strings 

Of  an  eternal  lyre ! 

Thou,  too,  O  latest  comer  in  the  Qiiire, 

Whom  most  I  praise  with  him 

Thy  master,  and  our  milder  English  seer. 

Lift  up  thy  music  clear ; 

For  never  didst  thou  find  the  vision  dim. 

Or  long  to  linger  here 

Among  the  roses  and  the  summer  green. 

But,  knowing  not  a  wavering  in  desire. 

With  unrelenting  wings 

Thou  fleddest  past  us  towards  eternal  things 

As  swallows  fly  to  summers  never  seen. 

A.  Mary  F.  Robinson. 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE  ...... 

DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 
BY  WALTER  PATER 

BALLADS  AND  SONNETS  :  mdccclxxxi 
Ballads : 


ROSE    MARY        ...... 

THE   WHITE    SHIP       ..... 

THE    king's    tragedy         .... 

The  House  of  Life  :  a  sonnet-sequence  « 
introductory  sonnet 

part  i.     youth  and  change  : 


PAGS 

xvii 

xxiii 


5 
49 
65 


103 


I. 

LOVE    ENTHRONED 

107 

- 

II. 

*BRIDAL    BIRTH 

108 

XE 

III. 

♦love's  redemption 

109 

m 

IV. 
V. 

*lovesight    . 
heart's  hope 

I  ID 
III 

jj 

VI. 

*THE    KISS 

112 

■g: 

VII. 

*NUPTIAL    SLEEP        . 

113 

^ 

VIII. 

♦supreme  surrender     . 

114 

~ 

»  The  sonnets  marked  *  are  those  which  lypaarad  4a  the  Poems  of  1870. 

vii 

vy  V' 

W 

V 

X. 

^X 

XI. 

>< 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

>c\ 

XVI. 

<V 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

?«,iv» 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

X  Vv< 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

K  J 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

/  ^  \ 

XXXVII. 

CONTENTS 

love's  lovers 
*passion  and  worship 
*the  portrait 
*the  love-letter  . 

THE    lovers'   walk 

youth's  ANTIPHONY 

youth's  spring-tribute 
*the  birth-bond 
*a  day  of  love 

beauty's  pageant 

genius  in  beauty 

silent  noon    . 

gracious  moonlight 
*love-sweetness 

heart's  HAVEN 
*LOVE's  BAUBLES 

pride  of  youth 
*winged  hours 
mid-rapture    . 
heart's  compass 
soul-light 

THE    MOONSTAR 
LAST  FIRE 
HER    GIFTS 
EQJJAL   TROTH 
VENUS   VICTRIX 
THE    DARK   GLASS 
THE    lamp's    SHRINE 
*LIFE-IN-LOVE      . 


PAGS 

ii6 
117 
118 
119 
120 
121 
122 
123 
124 

126 
127 
128 
129 
130 

131 
132 

133 
134 
13s 
136 

137 
138 

139 
140 

141 

142 

143 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


/V/\l 

XXXVIII. 

*THE    LOVE-MOON 

. 

144 

\V 

XXXIX. 

*THE    morrow's    message 

145 

'i 

XL. 

*SLEEPLESS    DREAMS 

T 

146 

XLI. 

SEVERED    SELVES 

147 

XLII. 

THROUGH    DEATH    TO    LOVE 

148 

XLIII. 

HOPE    OVERTAKEN     , 

149 

XLIV. 

LOVE    AND    HOPE 

150 

XLV. 

CLOUD    AND    WIND 

151 

io 

XL  VI. 

*SECRET    PARTING 

152 

z  \ 

XLVII. 

*PARTED    LOVE 

153 

2-2- 

XL  VIII. 

*BROKEN    MUSIC 

154 

Z3 

XLIX. 

*DEATH-IN-LOVE 

155 

L. 

*WILLOWWOOD.       I. 

.         156 

ll 

LI. 

*WILLOWWOOD.       II. 

157 

LII. 

*WILLOWWOOD.       III. 

158 

LIII. 

*WILLOWWOOD.       IV. 

159 

\/  LIV. 

WITHOUT    HER 

160 

LV. 

love's    FATALITY      . 

161 

z.  i 

LVI. 

*STILLBORN    LOVE 

162 

LVII. 

TRUE    woman:     I.     HERSELF 

163 

LVIII. 

TRUE  woman:    II. 

HER    LOVE 

164 

LIX. 

TRUE    WOMAN  :     III. 

HER    HEAVEN 

165 

LX. 

love's  last  gift  . 

• 

166 

PART    II.       CHANGE 

AND    FATI 

c: 

LXI.       TRANSFIGURED    LIFE 

LXII.       THE    SONG-THROE       . 

^  LXIII.       THE    soul's    SPHERE 


LXIV. 


INCLUSIVENESS 


169 
170 
171 

172 


IX 


CONTENTS 


3to 

2  I 
32 


33 

3(. 


3"? 


33 
3^/ 


LXV. 
LXVI. 
LXVII. 
LXVIII. 
LXIX. 
LXX. 
^LXXI. 
LXXII. 
LXXIII. 
LXXIV. 
LXXV. 

LXX  VI. 

LXXVII. 

LXXVIII. 

LXXIX. 

LXXX. 

LXXXI. 

LXXXII. 

LXXXIII. 

^  LXXXI V. 

LXXXV. 

3  Vlxxxvi. 

f  0  '  LXXXVII. 

4l     LXXXVIII. 

LXXXIX. 

xc. 


ARDOUR   AND    MEMORY    . 
*KNOWN    IN    VAIN      . 

THE    HEART    OF    THE    NIGHT    . 
*THE    LANDMARK       . 
*A   DARK    DAY 
*AUTUMN    IDLENESS 
*THE    HILL    SUMMIT 
*THE    CHOICE.       I.      . 
*THE    CHOICE.       II.    . 
*THE    CHOICE.       III. 
*OLD    AND    NEW   ART  :     I.      ST.     LUKE 
THE    PAINTER 

OLD    AND    NEW    ART  :      II.      NOT   AS 
THESE  .... 

OLD    AND   NEW   ART  I    III.    THE  HUS 
BANDMEN      .... 

*soul's  beauty 
*body's  beauty 
*the  MONOCHORD    ; 

from  dawn  to  noon   . 

memorial  thresholds 
*hoarded  joy 
*barren  spring 
*farewell  to  the  glen 
*vain  virtues 
*lost  days    .... 

*DEATH's    SONGSTERS 

hero's  lamp 

the  trees  of  the  garden 


PAGE 

175 
176 

178 
179 
180 
181 
182 

184 

186 
187 
188 
189 
190 
191 
192 

193 
194 

196 
197 
198 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

qZ'Xci. 

*««  RETRO    ME,    SATHANA!" 

199 

M3  -xcii. 

*LOST    ON    BOTH    SIDES 

200 

^'H  xciii. 

*THE    sun's    shame.       I. 

201 

XCIV. 

THE    sun's    shame.       II. 

202 

xcv. 

Michelangelo's  kiss 

203 

i  S  xcvi. 

*THE    VASE    OF    LIFE      . 

204 

XCVII. 

LIFE    THE    BELOVED      . 

205 

H(i  -xcviii. 

*A    SUPERSCRIPTION 

206 

M  ~^  ~  XCIX. 

*HE    AND    I 

207 

H^        c. 

*NEWBORN    DEATH.       I. 

208 

^'I        CI. 

♦newborn    DEATH.       II. 

209 

ra  cii. 

*THE    ONE    HOPE  . 

210 

Lyrics,  &c. 


SOOTHSAY 

213 

>f   CHIMES      . 

218 

PARTED    PRESENCE 

225 

/  A    DEATH-PARTING 

227 

SPHERAL    CHANGE 

229 

SUNSET   WINGS 

230 

SONG   AND    MUSIC 

232 

THREE    SHADOWS 

233 

ALAS,    SO    LONG  ! 

234 

ADIEU 

235 

INSOMNIA 

236 

POSSESSION 

237 

THE    CLOUD    CONFIN] 

ss 

238 

XI 


CONTENTS 


Sonnets  : 


PAGE 


FOR   THE    HOLY   FAMILY    (bY    MICHELANGELO) 
^    FOR    SPRING    (by    SANDRO    BOTTICELLI)      . 

FIVE    ENGLISH    POETS  — 

I.       THOMAS    CHATTERTON 
II.       WILLIAM    BLAKE 

III.  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE 

IV.  JOHN    KEATS 
V.       PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY 

^  TIBER,    NILE    AND    THAMES 

THE    LAST    THREE    FROM    TRAFALGAR 

CZAR   ALEXANDER    THE    SECOND 

WORDS    ON    THE    WINDOW-PANE 
'^   WINTER 

SPRING  ..... 

the  church-porch 

untimely  lost     (oliver  madox  brown ) 

place  de  la  bastille,  paris 

**  found"  (for  a  picture)   . 

A    SEA-SPELL    (fOR    A    PICTURE) 
FIAMMETTA    (fOR   A    PICTURE) 
THE    DAY-DREAM    (fOR    A    PICTURE) 
ASTARTE    SYRIACA    (fOR   A    PICTURE) 
PROSERPINA    (per    UN    QUADRO) 
PROSERPINA    (for   A    PICTURE) 
LA    BELLA    MANO    (PER    UN    QUADRO) 
LA   BELLA   MANO    (fOR   A   PICTURE) 


244 

246 

247 
248 
249 

250 

251 
252 
253 
254 
255 
256 

257 
258 

259 
260 
261 
262 
263 
264 
265 
266 
267 


xu 


CONTENTS 


Additional  Poems  :  mdccclxxxvi* 


n/. 


AT   THE    SUN-RISE    IN    1 848 

*AUTUMN   SONG  .... 

THE    lady's    lament 

A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 

THE    STAIRCASE    OF    NOTRE    DAME,    PARIS 

NEAR    BRUSSELS A    HALF-WAY    PAUSE 

*ANTWERP   AND    BRUGES 
ON    LEAVING    BRUGES 
VOX    ECCLESI^,    VOX    CHRISTI 
THE    MIRROR    .... 
DURING    MUSIC 

*ON   THE    SITE    OF   A    MULBERRY-TREE 
ON    CERTAIN    ELIZABETHAN    REVIVALS 
ENGLISH    MAY 

DAWN    ON   THE    NIGHT-JOURNEY 
TO    PHILIP    BOURKE    MARSTON 

*raleigh's  cell  in  the  tower 

for  an  annunciation    . 

*for  a  virgin  and  child  by  memmelinck 

*for   a    marriage    of    st.    catherine,    by 

THE    SAME 

*MARY's    GIRLHOOD    (fOR   A    PICTURE)       II. 
THE    CHURCH    PORCHES.       II.       . 


271 
272 

284 
285 
286 
287 
288 
289 
290 
291 
292 

293 
294 
295 
296 
297 
298 

299 
300 

301 


*  First  brought  together  in  the  Collected  Works,  (1886)  and,  excepting  a 
few  which  have  an  asterisk  prefixed  to  title,  not  found  elsewhere.  The 
poems  with  asterisk  were  printed  by  Rossetti  "  in  some  outlying  form,  but 
not  in  his  volumes."     See  Notes  by  W.  M.  Rossetti. 


Xlll 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
VERSES    FOR    ROSSETTl's  OWN  WORKS    OF    ART  : 

MICHAEL    SCOTT's    WOOING      ....  3O2 

MNEMOSYNE 302 

POEMS  IN  ITALIAN    (OR    ITALIAN   AND    ENGLISH) 
FRENCH,    AND    LATIN: 

LA    RICORDANZA 3O3 

MEMORY  .......  303 

CON    MANTO    d'oRO,    ETC.         ....  303 

WITH    GOLDEN   MANTLE,    ETC.  .  .  .  303 

ROBE    d'oR,    etc.  .....  303 

A  GOLDEN  ROBE,  ETC.      .     .     .     .     303 

BARCAROLA 
BARCAROLA 


BAMBINO    FASCIATO 
THOM^    FIDES 


...  304 

305 
306 

VERSICLES    AND    FRAGMENTS      ....  307 
TRANSLATIONS  : 

LA    PIA DANTE 3II 

CAPITOLO A.     M.     SALVINI     TO     FRANCESCO 

REDI,    16 ......  312 

*TWO    LYRICS    FROM   NICCOLO    TOMMASEO  : 

I.       THE   YOUNG   GIRL          ....  315 

II.       A   FAREWELL 318 

TWO  SONGS  FROM  VICTOR  HUGO's  "bURGRAVES"  32O 

LILITH FROM    GOTHE             .             .             .             .  322 


NOTES : 

I.      VARIANTS   IN    THE  HOUSE  OF  LIFE         .  325 

II.       NOTES    BY   W.    M.    ROSSETTI    .  .  .  327 


PREFACE 


w 


PREFACE 

ITH  the  completion  of  Ballads  and  Sonnets  our  editorial 
labours  in  connexion  with  the  poetical  works  of  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossetti  come  to  an  end.     The  main  object  of  giving 

I  the  American  reader  an  untampered  text  in  Rossetti's  original 

order  of  publication  and  "  in  a  format  commensurate  with  his 
rank  and  dignity  as  a  poet,"  thus  stands  accomplished.  A  few 
additional  poems  brought  together  from  various  sources  since 
1881    by  his   brother  and   editor,    Mr.   W.   M.   Rossetti,   are 

I  properly  placed  at  the  close  of  the  present  volume.^ 

There  are  in  existence,  however,   certain  desiderata  which 
might  well   have   found  place  here  had  that  been  possible. 

I  "  One  of  these  is  a  grotesque  ballad  about  a  Dutchman,  begun 

at  a  very  early  date,  and  finished  in  his  last  illness.  The  other 
is  a  brace  of  sonnets,  interesting  in  subject  and  as  being  the 
last  thing  that  he  wrote.  These  works  were  presented  as  a  gift 
of  love  and  gratitude  to  a  friend,  with  whom  it  remains  for 


I  For  what  may  be  regarded  as  a  final  contribution  to  the  literature 
of  odds  and  ends,  see  Some  Scraps  of  Verse  and  Prose  by  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti^  in  The  Pall  Mall  Magazine  for  December,  1898,  pp.  480-496. 
From  this  source  in  our  reprint  oi Poems  (pp.  331-335,)  we  have  availed 
ourselves  of  the  one  piece  worth  reprinting,  to  wit :  Ave,  in  an  earlier 
and  more  extended  form. 

xvii 


PREFACE 

publishing  at  his  own  discretion."  ^  Further  light  is  thrown 
upon  this  subject  by  Mr.  Theodore  Watts-Dunton  in  an  article 
entitled  RossettVs  Unpublished  Poems^  Therein  a  promise  was 
made :  "  Time  ...  is  the  suzerain  before  whom  every  king, 
even  Sorrow  himself,  bows  at  last.  The  rights  of  Rossetti's 
admirers  can  no  longer  be  set  at  nought,  and  I  am  making 
arrangements  to  publish  within  the  present  year  Jan  Van  Hunks 
and  the  'Sphinx  Sonnets,'  the  former  of  which  will  show  a 
new  and,  I  think,  an  unexpected  side  of  Rossetti's  genius.'* 
Seven  years  have  elapsed  since  this  was  written  but  these 
"  rights  "  unhappily  remain  unsatisfied ! 

Concerning  three  other  poems,  "  two  of  them  sonnets,  a  third 
a  ballad  of  no  great  length,"  we  have  already  dealt  with  the 
first  sonnet  —  Nuptial  Sleep — in  the  only  manner  possible. 
As  regards  the  second  sonnet  —  After  the  French  Liberation 
of  Italy  —  which  Rossetti  put  into  print  when  preparing  the 
volume  of  1870,  we  can  for  once  entirely  agree  with  him  and 
his  editor  as  to  the  propriety  of  its  remaining  unpublished.'* 


2  See  Preface  to  the  Collected  Works,  Vol.  I,  pp.  xxxiii;  also  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossetti  as  Designer  and  Writer :  Notes  by  W.  M.  Rossetti,  (Lon- 
don, 1889,)  p.  175,  where  the  title  of  the  first  poem  is  given  as  The 
Dutchman's  Pipe.    The  sonnets  (p.  93,)  were  entitled  The  Sphinx. 

3  Contributed  to  The  Athenceum  for  May  23,  1896.  See  also  a  letter 
of  great  interest  in  The  Spectator  lor  April  25,  1896,  upon  which  we 
base  our  closing  paragraph. 

4  This  sonnet  along  with  his  Autumn  Song  is  now  and  again  offered 
at  an  exorbitant  price  to  collectors  :  Verses  /  By  /  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti/ 
London:  Privately  Printed:  /  1881. 

Octavo.    Wrapper.    Pp.  16,  (including  half-titles  and  blank  leaves). 

xviii 


PREFACE 

Lastly,  the  ballad  "of  no  great  length"  —  Dennis  Shand — 
which  we  have  been  privileged  to  read  in  the  cancelled  proof- 
pages,  may  also  be  safely  relegated  to  the  realm  of  abortive 
verse.  Contrariwise  two  juvenile  translations  are  intentionally 
omitted  by  us :  the  longest,  taken  from  a  poem  —  Der  Arms 
Heinrich  —  is  by  Hartmann  von  Aue  the  old  German  minne- 
singer.5  An  earlier  effort  consists  of  a  version  of  Burger's 
Lenore  completed  on  or  about  Rossetti's  sixteenth  year.^ 

Regarding  our  illustrations  the  two  facsimiles  are  taken  from 
Mr.  William  Sharp's  volume  of  very  positive  value,  —  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossetti:  a  Record  and  a  Study, 7  while  the  Rossetti 
portrait,  chosen  for  frontispiece,  is  an  enlarged  copy  by 
Bierstadt  process  of  the  original  photograph  of  1862. 

One  would  indeed  rejoice  to  know  that  an  authoritative 
biography  of  Rossetti  was  set  down  for  publication  in  the 
immediate  future.  For  this  boon  we  may  have  some  few  years 
more  to  wait.     Nevertheless  it  is  tolerably  certain   that   the 


5  Printed  in  the  Collected  Works,  (Vol.  II,  pp.  420-460,)  under  the 
title  of  Henry  the  Leper :  A  Swabian  Miracle- Rhyme. 

6  See  W.  M.  Rossetti's  preface  to  Lenore  by  Gottfried  August  BUrger : 
Translated  from  the  German  by  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  (quarto),  London, 
1900.  An  original  unpublished  ballad  in  MS.,  composed  at  the  same 
early  age,  and  consisting  of  tvventj-five  four-line  stanzas,  entitled 
William  and  Mary,  was  quite  recently  offered  for  sale  by  a  Chicago 
bookseller,  (April,  1903). 

7  The  original  design  for  the  Introductory  Sonnet  is  in  pen-and-ink 
and  was  presented  to  Rossetti's  mother  on  her  eightieth  birthday, 
April  27,  1880. 

xix 


PREFACE 

friend  to  whom  "he  unlocked  the  most  sacred  secrets  of  his 
heart"  will,  when  the  time  has  arrived  for  him  to  speak, 
take  the  world  into  his  confidence.  In  that  day  we  shall 
possess  a  picture  of  the  poet-painter  as  he  appeared  to  one  who 
loved  him  very  dearly,  limned  in  language  of  enduring  truth, 
for  all  time  present  and  to  come. 

We  now  take  leave  of  Rossetti  in  a  prefatory  way :  of  his 
poetry  and  art  there  can  be  no  final  leave-taking. 


**  Clouds  are  there  none  to  dim  for  thee  heaven's  glow; 

The  measured  hours  compel  not  thee  at  all ; 

Chance  or  necessity  thou  canst  not  know. 
Thy  splendour  wanes  not  when  our  night  doth  fall, 

Nor  waxes  with  day's  light  however  clear, 

Nor  when  our  suns  the  season's  warmth  recall." 


DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 


h 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 


TT  was  characteristic  of  a  poet  who  had  ever  something 
A  about  him  of  mystic  isolation,  and  will  still  appeal 
perhaps,  though  with  a  name  it  may  seem  now  established 
in  English  literature,  to  a  special  and  limited  audience, 
that  some  of  his  poems  had  won  a  kind  of  exquisite 
fame  before  they  were  in  the  full  sense  published.  The 
Blessed  Damozel,  although  actually  printed  twice  before 
the  year  1870,  was  eagerly  circulated  in  manuscript ; 
and  the  volume  which  it  now  opens  came  at  last  to 
satisfy  a  long-standing  curiosity  as  to  the  poet,  whose 
pictures  also  had  become  an  object  of  the  same  peculiar 
kind  of  interest.  For  those  poems  were  the  work  of  a 
painter,  understood  to  belong  to,  and  to  be  indeed  the 
leader,  of  a  new  school  then  rising  into  note ;  and 
the  reader  of  to-day  may  observe  already,  in  The  Blessed 
Damozel,  written  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  a  prefigurement 
of  the  chief  characteristics  of  that  school,  as  he  will 
recognise  in  it  also,  in  proportion  as  he  really  knows 
Rossetti,  many  of  the  characteristics  which  are  most 
markedly  personal  and  his  own.  Common  to  that  school 
and  to  him,  and  in  both  alike  of  primary  significance, 

xxiii 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

was  the  quality  of  sincerity,  already  felt  as  one  of  the 
charms  of  that  earliest  poem  —  a  perfect  sincerity,  taking 
effect  in  the  deliberate  use  of  the  most  direct  and 
unconventional  expression,  for  the  conveyance  of  a 
poetic  sense  which  recognised  no  conventional  standard 
of  what  poetry  was  called  upon  to  be.  At  a  time  when 
poetic  originality  in  England  might  seem  to  have  had 
its  utmost  play,  here  was  certainly  one  n^w  poet  more, 
with  a  structure  and  music  of  verse,  a  vocabulary,  an 
accent,  unmistakably  novel,  yet  felt  to  be  no  mere  tricks 
of  manner  adopted  with  a  view  to  forcing  attention  — 
an  accent  which  might  rather  count  as  the  very  seal  of 
reality  on  one  man's  own  proper  speech ;  as  that  speech 
itself  was  the  wholly  natural  expression  of  certain 
wonderful  things  he  really  felt  and  saw.  Here  was  one, 
who  had  a  matter  to  present  to  his  readers,  to  himself  at 
least,  in  the  first  instance,  so  valuable,  so  real  and 
definite,  that  his  primary  aim,  as  regards  form  or 
expression  in  his  verse,  would  be  but  its  exact  equivalence 
to  those  data  within.  That  he  had  this  gift  of  trans- 
parency in  language  —  the  control  of  a  style  which  did 
but  obediently  shift  and  shape  itself  to  the  mental  motion, 
as  a  well-trained  hand  can  follow  on  the  tracing-paper 
the  outline  of  an  original  drawing  below  it,  was  proved 
afterwards  by  a  volume  of  typically  perfect  translations 

xxiv 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

from  the  delightful  but  difficult  *  *  early  Italian  poets  :  " 
such  transparency  being  indeed  the  secret  of  all  genuine 
style,  of  all  such  style  as  can  truly  belong  to  one  man 
and  not  to  another.  His  own  meaning  was  always 
personal  and  even  recondite,  in  a  certain  sense  learned 
and  casuistical,  sometimes  complex  or  obscure ;  but  the 
term  was  always,  one  could  see,  deliberately  chosen 
from  many  competitors,  as  the  just  transcript  of  that 
peculiar  phase  of  soul  which  he  alone  knew,  precisely  as 
he  knew  it. 

One  of  the  peculiarities  of  The  Blessed  Damozel  was 
a  definiteness  of  sensible  imagery,  which  seemed  almost 
grotesque  to  some,  and  was  strange,  above  all,  in  a 
theme  so  profoundly  visionary.  The  gold  bar  of  heaven 
from  which  she  leaned,  her  hair  yellow  like  ripe  corn, 
are  but  examples  of  a  general  treatment,  as  naively 
detailed  as  the  pictures  of  those  early  painters  contem- 
porary with  Dante,  who  has  shown  a  similar  care  for 
minute  and  definite  imagery  in  his  verse;  there,  too, 
in  the  very  midst  of  profoundly  mystic  vision.  Such 
definition  of  outline  is -indeed  one  among  many  points  in 
which  Rossetti  resembles  the  great  Italian  poet,  of  whom, 
led  to  him  at  first  by  family  circumstances,  he  was  ever 
a  lover  —  a  **  servant  and  singer,"  faithful  as  Dante,  **  of 
Florence  and  of  Beatrice"  —  with  some  close  inward 

XXV 


•H^J^ 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

conformities  of  genius  also,  independent  of  any  mere 
circumstances  of  education.  It  was  said  by  a  critic  of 
the  last  century,  not  wisely  though  agreeably  to  the 
practice  of  his  time,  that  poetry  rejoices  in  abstractions. 
For  Rossetti,  as  for  Dante,  without  question  on  his  part, 
the  first  condition  of  the  poetic  way  of  seeing  and 
presenting  things  is  particularisation.  **Tell  me  now," 
he  writes,  for  Villon's 

"  Dictes-moy  oil,  n'en  quel  pays, 
Est  Flora,  la  belle  Romaine"  — 

"Tell  me  now,  in  what  hidden  way  is 
Lady  Flora  the  lovely  Roman  : " 

—  **way,"  in  which  one  might  actually  chance  to  meet 
her;  the  unmistakably  poetic  effect  of  the  couplet  in 
English  being  dependent  on  the  definiteness  of  that  single 
word  (though  actually  lighted  on  in  the  search  after  a 
difficult  double  rhyme)  for  which  every  one  else  would 
have  written,  like  Villon  himself,  a  more  general  one, 
just  equivalent  to  place  or  region. 

And  this  delight  in  concrete  definition  is  allied  with 
another  of  his  conformities  to  Dante,  the  really  imagina- 
tive vividness,  namely,  of  his  personifications  —  his  hold 
upon  them,  or  rather  their  hold  upon  him,  with  the  force 
of  a  Frankenstein,  when  once  they  have  taken  life  from 
him.     Not  Death  only  and  Sleep,  for  instance,  and  the 

xxvi 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

winged  spirit  of  Love,  but  certain  particular  aspects  of 
them,  a  whole  '*  populace"  of  special  hours  and  places, 
<'the  hour"  even  **  which  might  have  been,  yet  might 
not  be,"  are  living  creatures,  with  hands  and  eyes  and 
articulate  voices. 

"  Stands  it  not  by  the  door  — 
Love's  Hour  —  till  she  and  I  shall  meet; 
With  bodiless  form  and  unapparent  feet 

That  cast  no  shadow  yet  before, 
Though  round  its  head  the  dawn  begins  to  pour 
The  breath  that  makes  day  sweet?"  — 

*'  Nay,  why 
Name  the  dead  hours  ?    I  mind  them  well : 
Their  ghosts  in  many  darkened  doorways  dwell 
With  desolate  eyes  to  know  them  by." 

Poetry  as  a  mania  —  one  of  Plato's  two  higher  forms 
of  *<  divine"  mania  —  has,  in  all  its  species,  a  mere 
insanity  incidental  to  it,  the  **  defect  of  its  quality,"  into 
which  it  may  lapse  in  its  moment  of  weakness  ;  and  the 
insanity  which  follows  a  vivid  poetic  anthropomorphism 
like  that  of  Rossetti  may  be  noted  here  and  there  in  his 
work,  in  a  forced  and  almost  grotesque  materialising  of 
abstractions,  as  Dante  also  became  at  times  a  mere 
subject  of  the  scholastic  realism  of  the  Middle  Age. 

In  Lovers  Nocturn  and  The  StreanCs  Secret^  con- 
gruously perhaps  with  a  certain  feverishness  of  soul  in 

xxvii 


DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 

the  moods  they  present,  there  is  at  times  a  near  approach 
(may  it  be  said?)  to  such  insanity  of  realism  — 

•*  Pity  and  love  shall  burn 
In  her  pressed  cheek  and  cherishing  hands ; 
And  from  the  living  spirit  of  love  that  stands 

Between  her  lips  to  soothe  and  yearn, 
Each  separate  breath  shall  clasp  me  round  in  turn 
And  loose  my  spirit's  bands." 

But  even  if  we  concede  this ;  even  if  we  allow,  in 
the  very  plan  of  those  two  compositions,  something  of  the 
literary  conceit  —  what  exquisite,  what  novel  flowers  of 
poetry,  we  must  admit  them  to  be,  as  they  stand !  In 
the  one,  what  a  delight  in  all  the  natural  beauty  of  water, 
all  its  details  for  the  eye  of  a  painter ;  in  the  other,  how 
subtle  and  fine  the  imaginative  hold  upon  all  the  secret 
ways  of  sleep  and  dreams  !  In  both  of  them,  with  much 
the  same  attitude  and  tone.  Love  —  sick  and  doubtful 
Love  —  would  fain  inquire  of  what  lies  below  the  surface 
of  sleep,  and  below  the  water ;  stream  or  dream  being 
forced  to  speak  by  Love's  powerful  *'  control ;  "  and  the 
poet  would  have  it  foretell  the  fortune,  issue,  and  event 
of  his  wasting  passion.  Such  artifices,  indeed,  were  not 
unknown  in  the  old  Provencal  poetry  of  which  Dante 
had  learned  something.  Only,  in  Rossetti  at  least,  they 
are  redeemed  by  a  serious  purpose,  by  that  sincerity  of 
his,  which  allies  itself  readily  to  a  serious  beauty,  a  sort 

xxviii 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

of  grandeur  of  literary  workmanship,  to  a  great  style. 
One  seems  to  hear  there  a  really  new  kind  of  poetic 
utterance,  with  effects  which  have  nothing  else  like 
them;  as  there  is  nothing  else,  for  instance,  like  the 
narrative  of  Jacob's  Dream  in  Genesis^  or  Blake's  design 
of  the  Singing  of  the  Morning  Stars,  or  Addison's 
Nineteenth  Psalm. 

With  him  indeed,  as  in  some  revival  of  the  old 
mythopoeic  age,  common  things  —  dawn,  noon,  night  — 
are  full  of  human  or  personal  expression,  full  of 
sentiment.  The  lovely  little  sceneries  scattered  up  and 
down  his  poems,  glimpses  of  a  landscape,  not  indeed  of 
broad  open-air  effects,  but  rather  that  of  a  painter 
concentrated  upon  the  picturesque  effect  of  one  or  two 
selected  objects  at  a  time  —  the  '*  hollow  brimmed  with 
mist,"  or  the  **  ruined  weir,"  as  he  sees  it  from  one  of 
the  windows,  or  reflected  in  one  of  the  mirrors  of  his 
*'  house  of  life  "  (the  vignettes  for  instance  seen  by 
Rose  Mary  in  the  magic  beryl)  attest,  by  their  very 
freshness  and  simplicity,  to  a  pictorial  or  descriptive 
power  in  dealing  with  the  inanimate  world,  which  is 
certainly  also  one  half  of  the  charm,  in  that  other, 
more  remote  and  mystic,  use  of  it.  For  with  Rossetti 
this  sense  of  lifeless  nature  after  all,  is  translated  to  a 
higher  service,  in  which  it  does  but  incorporate  itself 

xxix 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

with  some  phase  of  strong  emotion.  Every  one  under- 
stands how  this  may  happen  at  critical  moments  of  life  ; 
what  a  weirdly  expressive  soul  may  have  crept,  even 
in  full  noonday,  into  **the  white-flower'd  elder-thicket," 
when  Godiva  saw  it  *  *  gleam  through  the  Gothic 
archways  in  the  wall,"  at  the  end  of  her  terrible  ride. 
To  Rossetti  it  is  so  always,  because  to  him  life  is  a  crisis 
at  every  moment.  A  sustained  impressibility  towards  the 
mysterious  conditions  of  man's  everyday  life,  towards 
the  very  mystery  itself  in  it,  gives  a  singular  gravity  to 
all  his  work:  those  matters  never  became  trite  to  him. 
But  throughout,  it  is  the  ideal  intensity  of  love  —  of  love 
based  upon  a  perfect  yet  peculiar  type  of  physical  or 
material  beauty  —  which  is  enthroned  in  the  midst  of 
those  mysterious  powers  ;  Youth  and  Death,  Destiny  and 
Fortune,  Fame,  Poetic  Fame,  Memory,  Oblivion,  and  the 
like.  Rossetti  is  one  of  those  who,  in  the  words  of 
Merim^e,  se  passionnent  pour  la  passion^  one  of  Love's 
lovers. 

And  yet,  again  as  with  Dante,  to  speak  of  his  ideal 
type  of  beauty  as  material,  is  partly  misleading.  Spirit 
and  matter,  indeed,  have  been  for  the  most  part  opposed, 
with  a  false  contrast  or  antagonism,  by  schoolmen,  whose 
artificial  creation  those  abstractions  really  are.  In  our 
actual  concrete  experience,  the  two  trains  of  phenomena 


DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 

which  the  words  matter  and  spirit  do  but  roughly  dis- 
tinguish, play  inextricably  into  each  other.  Practically, 
the  church  of  the  Middle  Age  by  its  aesthetic  worship, 
its  sacramentalism,  its  real  faith  in  the  resurrection  of 
the  flesh,  had  set  itself  against  that  Manichean  opposition 
of  spirit  and  matter,  and  its  results  in  men's  way  of 
taking  life ;  and  in  this,  Dante  is  the  central  represent- 
ative of  its  spirit.  To  him,  in  the  vehement  and 
impassioned  heat  of  his  conceptions,  the  material  and 
the  spiritual  are  fused  and  blent :  if  the  spiritual  attains  the 
definite  visability  of  a  crystal,  what  is  material  loses  its 
earthiness  and  impurity.  And  here  again,  by  force  of 
instinct,  Rossetti  is  one  with  him.  His  chosen  type 
of  beauty  is  one, 


Whose  speech  Truth  knows  not  from  her  thought, 
Nor  Love  her  body  from  her  soul." 


Like  Dante,  he  knows  no  region  of  spirit  which  shall 
not  be  sensuous  also,  or  material.  The  shadowy  world, 
which  he  realises  so  powerfully,  has  still  the  ways  and 
houses,  the  land  and  water,  the  light  and  darkness,  the 
fire  and  flowers,  that  had  so  much  to  do  in  the  moulding 
of  those  bodily  powers  and  aspects  which  counted  for  so 
large  a  part  of  the  soul,  here. 

xxxi 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

For  Rossetti,  then,  the  great  affections  of  persons  to 
each  other,  swayed  and  determined,  in  the  case  of  his 
highly  pictorial  genius,  mainly  by  that  so-called  material 
loveliness,  formed  the  great  undeniable  reality  in  things, 
the  solid  resisting  substance,  in  a  world  where  all  beside 
might  be  but  shadow.  The  fortunes  of  those  affections  — 
of  the  great  love  so  determined;  its  casuistries,  its 
languor  sometimes;  above  all,  its  sorrows;  its  fortunate 
or  unfortunate  collisions  with  those  other  great  matters ; 
how  it  looks,  as  the  long  day  of  life  goes  round,  in  the 
light  and  shadow  of  them :  all  this,  conceived  with 
an  abundant  imagination,  and  a  deep,  a  philosophic, 
reflectiveness,  is  the  matter  of  his  verse,  and  especially 
of  what  he  designed  as  his  chief  poetic  work,  *'  a  work 
to  be  called  The  House  of  Life^^^  towards  which  the 
majority  of  his  sonnets  and  songs  were  contributions. 

The  dwelling-place  in  which  one  finds  oneself  by 
chance  or  destiny,  yet  can  partly  fashion  for  oneself; 
never  properly  one's  own  at  all,  if  it  be  changed  too 
lightly ;  in  which  every  object  has  its  associations  — 
the  dim  mirrors,  the  portraits,  the  lamps,  the  books,  the 
hair-tresses  of  the  dead  and  visionary  magic  crystals 
in  the  secret  drawers,  the  names  and  words  scratched  on 
the  windows,  windows  open  upon  prospects  the  saddest 
or  the  sweetest;  the  house  one  must  quit,  yet  taking 

xxxii 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

perhaps,  how  much  of  its  quietly  active  light  and  colour 
along  with  us  !  -j—  grown  now  to  be  a  kind  of  raiment  to 
one's  body,  as  the  body,  according  to  Swedenborg,  is 
but  the  raiment  of  the  soul — r under  that  image,  the 
whole  of  Rossetti's  work  might  count  as  a  House  of 
Life^  of  which  he  is  but  the  '*  Interpreter."  And  it  is  a 
** haunted"  house. K A  sense  of  power  in  love,  defying 
distance,  and  those  barriers  which  are  so  much  more 
than  physical  distance,  of  unutterable  desire  penetrating 
into  the  world  of  sleep,\however  **  lead-bound,"  was  one 
of  those  anticipative  notes  obscurely  struck  in  The 
Blessed  Damozel^  and,  in  his  later  work,  makes  him 
speak  sometimes  almost  like  a  believer  in  mesmerism. 
Dream-land,  as  we  said,  with  its  **  phantoms  of  the 
body,"  deftly  coming  and  going  on  love's  service,  is 
to  him,  in  no  mere  fancy  or  figure  of  speech,  a  real 
country,  a  veritable  expansion  of,  or  addition  to,  our 
waking  life ;  and  he  did  well  perhaps  to  wait  carefully 
upon  sleep,  for  the  lack  of  it  became  mortal  disease  with 
him.  "One  may  even  recognise  a  sort  of  morbid  and 
over-hasty  making-ready  for  death  itself,  which  increases 
on  him ;  thoughts  concerning  it,  its  imageries,  coming 
with  a  frequency  and  importunity,  in  excess,  one 
might  think,  of  even  the  very  saddest,  quite  whole- 
some wisdom. 

xxxiii 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

And  indeed  the  publication  of  his  second  volume  of 
Ballads  and  Sonnets  preceded  his  death  by  scarcely  a 
twelvemonth.  That  volume  bears  witness  to  the  reverse 
of  any  failure  of  power,  or  falling-off  from  his  early 
standard  of  literary  perfection,  in  every  one  of  his  then 
accustomed  forms  of  poetry —  the  song,  the  sonnet,  and 
the  baUad.  The  newly  printed  sonnets,  now  complet- 
ing the  House  of  Life  ^  certainly  advanced  beyond  those 
earlier  ones,  in  clearness ;  his  dramatic  power  in  the 
ballad,  was  here  at  its  height  ;i  while  one  monumental, 
gnomic  piece.  Soothsay^  testifies,  more  clearly  even  than 
the  Nineveh  of  his  first  volume,  to  the  reflective  force,  the 
dry  reason,  always  at  work  behind  his  imaginative 
creations,  which  at  no  time  dispensed  with  a  genuine 
intellectual  structure.  For  in  matters  of  pure  reflection 
also,  Rossetti  maintained  the  painter's  sensuous  clearness 
of  conception ;  and  this  has  something  to  do  with  the 
capacity,  largely  illustrated  by  his  ballads,  of  telling 
some  red-hearted  story  of  impassioned  action  with 
effect. 

Have  there,  in  very  deed,  been  ages,  in  which  the 
external  conditions  of  poetry  such  as  Rossetti's  were  of 
more  spontaneous  growth  than  in  our  own  ?  The  archaic 
side  of  Rossetti's  work,  his  preferences  in  regard  to 
earlier  poetry,  connect  him  with  those  who  have  certainly 

xxxiv 


I 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

thought  so,  who  fancied  they  could  have  breathed  more 
largely  in  the  age  of  Chaucer,  or  of  Ronsard,  in  one  of 
those  ages,  in  the  words  of  Stendhal  —  ces  si^cles  de 
-passions  ou  les  dmes  pouvaient  se  livrer  franchement  a 
la  plus  haute  exaltation^  quand  les  passions  qui  font  la 
possibilite  com7ne  les  sujets  des  beaux  arts  existaient. 
We  may  think,  perhaps,  that  such  old  time  as  that  has 
never  really  existed  except  in  the  fancy  of  poets  ;  but  it 
was  to  find  it,  that  Rossetti  turned  so  often  from  modern 
life  to  the  chronicle  of  the  past.  Old  Scotch  history, 
perhaps  beyond  any  other,  is  strong  in  the  matter  of 
heroic  and  vehement  hatreds  and  love,  the  tragic  Mary 
herself  being  but  the  perfect  blossom  of  them  ;  and  it  is 
from  that  history  that  Rossetti  has  taken  the  subjects  of 
the  two  longer  ballads  of  his  second  volume  :  of  the  three 
admirable  ballads  in  it.  The  King's  Tragedy  (in  which 
Rossetti  has  dexterously  interwoven  some  relics  of 
James's  own  exquisite  early  verse)  reaching  the  highest 
level  of  dramatic  success,  and  marking  perfection, 
perhaps,  in  this  kind  of  poetry ;  which,  in  the  earlier 
volume,  gave  us,  among  other  pieces,  Troy  Town, 
Sister  Helen,  and  Eden  Bower. 

Like  those  earlier  pieces,  the  ballads  of  the  second 
volume  bring  with  them  the  question  of  the  poetic  value 
of  the  **  refrain  "  — 

xxxv 


DANTE    GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

♦'  Eden  bower's  in  flower  : 
And  O  the  bower  and  the  hour ! " 

—  and  the  like.  Two  of  those  ballads  —  Troy  Town 
and  Eden  Bower ^  are  terrible  in  theme  ;  and  the  refrain 
serves,  perhaps,  to  relieve  their  bold  aim  at  the  sentiment 
of  terror.  In  Sister  Helen  again,  the  refrain  has  a  real, 
and  sustained  purpose  (being  here  duly  varied  also)  and 
performs  the  part  of  a  chorus,  as  the  story  proceeds. 
Yet  even  in  these  cases,  whatever  its  effect  may  be  in 
actual  recitation,  it  may  fairly  be  questioned,  whether, 
to  the  mere  reader  their  actual  effect  is  not  that  of  a 
positive  interruption  and  drawback,  at  least  in  pieces  so 
lengthy;  and  Rossetti  himself,  it  would  seem,  came  to 
think  so,  for  in  the  shortest  of  his  later  ballads,  The 
White  Ship  —  that  old  true  history  of  the  generosity  with 
which  a  youth,  worthless  in  life,  flung  himself  upon 
death  —  he  was  contented  with  a  single  utterance  of  the 
refrain,  *'  given  out "  like  the  keynote  or  tune  of  a  chant. 
In  The  King's  Tragedy,  Rossetti  has  worked  upon 
motive,  broadly  human  (to  adopt  the  phrase  of  popular 
criticism)  such  as  one  and  all  may  realise.  Rossetti, 
indeed,  with  all  his  self-concentration  upon  his  own 
peculiar  aim,  by  no  means  ignored  those  general  interests 
which  are  external  to  poetry  as  he  conceived  it ;  as  he 
has  shown  here  and  there,  in  this  poetic,  as  also  in  picto- 

xxxvi 


DANTE   GABRIEL   ROSSETTI 

rial,  work.  It  was  but  that,  in  a  life  to  be  shorter  even 
than  the  average,  he  found  enough  to  occupy  him  in  the 
fulfilment  of  a  task,  plainly  * '  given  him  to  do."  Perhaps, 
if  one  had  to  name  a  single  composition  of  his  to  readers 
desiring  to  make  acquaintance  with  him  for  the  first  time, 
one  would  select :  The  King's  Tragedy  —  that  poem  so 
moving,  so.  popularly  dramatic,  and  lifelike.  Notwith- 
standing this,  his  work,  it  must  be  conceded,  certainly 
through  no  narrowness  or  egotism,  but  in  the  faithfulness 
of  a  true  workman  to  a  vocation  so  emphatic,  was  mainly  of 
the  esoteric  order.  But  poetry,  at  all  times,  exercises 
two  distinct  functions :  it  may  reveal,  it  may  unveil  to 
every  eye,  the  ideal  aspects  of  common  things,  after 
Gray's  way  (though  Gray  too,  it  is  well  to  remember, 
seemed  in  his  own  day,  seemed  even  to  Johnson,  obscure) 
or  it  may  actually  add  to  the  number  of  motives  poetic  and 
uncommon  in  themselves,  by  the  imaginative  creation 
of  things  that  are  ideal  from  their  very  birth.  Rossetti 
did  something,  something  excellent,  of  the  former  kind ; 
but  his  characteristic,  his  really  revealing  work,  lay  in 
the  adding  to  poetry  of  fresh  poetic  material,  of  a  new 
order  of  phenomena,  in  the  creation  of  a  new  ideal.      i^ 

Walter  Pater. 
1883. 


BALLADS  AND  SONNETS 
MDCCCLXXXI 


ROSE  MARY 


I 


Of  her  iwojights  with  the  Beryl-stone 
Lost  the  first,  but  the  second  won. 


ROSE    MARY 
PART  I 

^'  \/[  ARY  mine  that  art  Mary's  Rose, 

i  V 1     Come  in  to  me  from  the  garden-close. 
The  sun  sinks  fast  with  the  rising  dew, 
And  we  marked  not  how  the  faint  noon  grew ; 
But  the  hidden  stars  are  calling  you. 

*'Tall  Rose  Mary,  come  to  my  side, 
And  read  the  stars  if  you'd  be  a  bride. 
In  hours  whose  need  was  not  your  own. 
While  you  were  a  young  maid  yet  ungrown, 
You've  read  the  stars  in  the  Beryl-stone. 

**  Daughter,  once  more  I  bid  you  read  ; 
But  now  let  it  be  for  your  own  need : 
Because  to-morrow,  at  break  of  day, 
To  Holy  Cross  he  rides  on  his  way, 
Your  knight  Sir  James  of  Heronhaye. 

«*  Ere  he  wed  you,  flower  of  mine. 
For  a  heavy  shrift  he  seeks  the  shrine. 
Now  hark  to  my  words  and  do  not  fear ; 
111  news  next  I  have  for  your  ear ; 
But  be  you  strong,  and  our  help  is  here. 

-    5 


ROSE    MARY 

**  On  his  road,  as  the  rumour's  rife, 
An  ambush  waits  to  take  his  life. 
He  needs  will  go,  and  will  go  alone ; 
Where  the  peril  lurks  may  not  be  known ; 
But  in  this  glass  all  things  are  shown." 

Pale  Rose  Mary  sank  to  the  floor : — 
**  The  night  will  come  if  the  day  is  o'er  I" 
**  Nay,  heaven  takes  counsel,  star  with  star, 
And  help  shall  reach  your  heart  from  afar : 
A  bride  you'll  be,  as  a  maid  you  are." 

The  lady  unbound  her  jewelled  zone 
And  drew  from  her  robe  the  Beryl-stone. 
Shaped  it  was  to  a  shadowy  sphere, — 
World  of  our  world,  the  sun's  compeer. 
That  bears  and  buries  the  toiling  year. 

With  shuddering  light  'twas  stirred  and  strewn 
Like  the  cloud-nest  of  the  wading  moon  : 
Freaked  it  was  as  the  bubble's  ball, 
Rainbow-hued  through  a  misty  pall 
Like  the  middle  light  of  the  waterfall. 

Shadows  dwelt  in  its  teeming  girth 
Of  the  known  and  unknown  things  of  earth ; 
The  cloud  above  and  the  wave  around, — 
The  central  fire  at  the  sphere's  heart  bound, 
Like  doomsday  prisoned  underground. 

6 


ROSE    MARY 

A  thousand  years  it  lay  in  the  sea 
With  a  treasure  wrecked  from  Thessaly ; 
Deep  it  lay  'mid  the  coiled  sea-wrack, 
But  the  ocean-spirits  found  the  track : 
A  soul  was  lost  to  win  it  back. 

The  lady  upheld  the  wondrous  thing : — 
**I11  fare"  (she  said)  *' with  a  fiend's-f airing 
But  Moslem  blood  poured  forth  like  wine 
Can  hallow  Hell,  *neath  the  Sacred  Sign ; 
And  my  lord  brought  this  from  Palestine. 

**  Spirits  who  fear  the  Blessed  Rood 
Drove  forth  the  accursed  multitude 
That  heathen  worship  housed  herein, — 
Never  again  such  home  to  win, 
Save  only  by  a  Christian's  sin. 

**  All  last  night  at  an  altar  fair 

I  burnt  strange  fires  and  strove  with  prayer ; 

Till  the  flame  paled  to  the  red  sunrise, 

All  rites  I  then  did  solemnize ; 

And  the  spell  lacks  nothing  but  your  eyes." 

Low  spake  maiden  Rose  Mary : — 
**  O  mother  mine,  if  I  should  not  see  !  " 
**Nay,  daughter,  cover  your  face  no  more, 
But  bend  love's  heart  to  the  hidden  lore. 
And  you  shall  see  now  as  heretofore." 


ROSE    MARY 

Paler  yet  were  the  pale  cheeks  grown 
As  the  grey  eyes  sought  the  Beryl-stone : 
Then  over  her  mother's  lap  leaned  she, 
And  stretched  her  thrilled  throat  passionately, 
And  sighed  from  her  soul,  and  said,  **I  see." 

Even  as  she  spoke,  they  two  were  'ware 
Of  music-notes  that  fell  through  the  air ;      v 
A  chiming  shower  of  strange  device, 
Drop  echoing  drop,  once  twice  and  thrice, 
As  rain  may  fall  in  Paradise. 

An  instant  come,  in  an  instant  gone. 

No  time  there  was  to  think  thereon. 

The  mother  held  the  sphere  on  her  knee  : — 

**  Lean  this  way  and  speak  low  to  me. 

And  take  no  note  but  of  what  you  see." 

**  I  see  a  man  with  a  besom  grey 

That  sweeps  the  flying  dust  away." 

*'  Ay,  that  comes  first  in  the  mystic  sphere ; 

But  now  that  the  way  is  swept  and  clear, 

Heed  well  what  next  you  look  on  there." 

**  Stretched  aloft  and  adown  I  see 
Two  roads  that  part  in  waste-country  : 
The  glen  lies  deep  and  the  ridge  stands  tall ; 
What's  great  below  is  above  seen  small, 
And  the  hill-side  is  the  valley-wall." 

8 


ROSE    MARY 


*'  Stream-bank,  daughter,  or  moor  and  moss, 
Both  roads  will  take  to  Holy  Cross. 
The  hills  are  a  weary  waste  to  wage ; 
But  what  of  the  valley-road's  presage  ? 
That  way  must  tend  his  pilgrimage." 

**  As  'twere  the  turning  leaves  of  a  book. 
The  road  runs  past  me  as  I  look ; 
Or  it  is  even  as  though  mine  eye 
^  Should  watch  calm  waters  filled  with  sky 
While  lights  and  clouds  and  wings  went  by." 

"In  every  covert  seek  a  spear; 
They'll  scarce  lie  close  till  he  draws  near." 
**The  stream  has  spread  to  a  river  now; 
The  stiff  blue  sedge  is  deep  in  the  slough. 
But  the  banks  are  bare  of  shrub  or  bough." 

**  Is  there  any  roof  that  near  at  hand 
Might  shelter  yield  to  a  hidden  band?" 
**  On  the  further  bank  I  see  but  one, 
And  a  herdsman  now  in  the  sinking  sun 
Unyokes  his  team  at  the  threshold-stone." 

**  Keep  heedful  watch  by  the  water's  edge, — 
Some  boat  might  lurk  'neath  the  shadowed  sedge." 
**  One  slid  but  now  'twixt  the  winding  shores, 
But  a  peasant  woman  bent  to  the  oars 
And  only  a  young  child  steered  its  course. 


ROSE    MARY 

*'  Mother,  something  flashed  to  my  sight! — 
Nay,  it  is  but  the  lapwing's  flight. — 
What  glints  there  like  a  lance  that  flees  ? — 
Nay,  the  flags  are  stirred  in  the  breeze,  . 
And  the  water's  bright  through  the  dart-rushes. 

**  Ah  !  vainly  I  search  from  side  to  side  : — 
Woe's  me  !  and  where  do  the  f oemen  hide  ? 
Woe's  me  !  and  perchance  I  pass  them  by. 
And  under  the  new  dawn's  blood-red  sky 
Even  where  I  gaze  the  dead  shall  lie." 

Said  the  mother :   '*  For  dear  love's  sake, 
Speak  more  low,  lest  the  spell  should  break." 
Said  the  daughter  :   "  By  love's  control. 
My  eyes,  my  words,  are  strained  to  the  goal; 
But  oh  I  the  voice  that  cries  in  my  soul  I  " 

*'  Hush,  sweet,  hush  !  be  calm  and  behold." 
**I  see  two  floodgates  broken  and  old : 
The  grasses  wave  o'er  the  ruined  weir. 
But  the  bridge  still  leads  to  the  breakwater ; 
And  —  mother,  mother,  O  mother  dear!" 

The  damsel  clung  to  her  mother's  knee, 

And  dared  not  let  the  shriek  go  free ; 

Low  she  crouched  by  the  lady's  chair. 

And  shrank  blindfold  in  her  fallen  hair. 

And  whispering  said,  **  The  spears  are  there  I " 

lO 


ROSE    MARY 

The  lady  stooped  aghast  from  her  place, 
And  cleared  the  locks  from  her  daughter's  face. 
"  More's  to  see,  and  she  swoons,  alas ! 
Look,,  look  again,  'ere  the  moment  pass  ! 
One  shadow  comes  but  once  to  the  glass. 

<'  See  you  there  what  you  saw  but  now?" 
*'  I  see  eight  men  'neath  the  willow-bough. 
All  over  the  weir  a  wild  growth's  spread : 
Ah  me  !  it  will  hide  a  living  head 
As  well  as  the  water  hides  the  dead. 

* '  They  lie  by  the  broken  water-gate 

As  men  who  have  a  while  to  wait. 

The  chiefs  high  lance  has  a  blazoned  scroll, — 

He  seems  some  lord  of  tithe  and  toll 

With  seven  squires  to  his  bannerole. 

**The  little  pennon  quakes  in  the  air, 
I  cannot  trace  the  blazon  there  : — 
Ah !  now  I  can  see  the  field  of  blue, 
The  spurs  and  the  merlins  two  and  two ; — 
It  is  the  Warden  of  Holycleugh  !  " 

<*  God  be  thanked  for  the  thing  we  know  ! 
You  have  named  your  good  knight's  mortal  foe. 
Last  Shrovetide  in  the  tourney-game 
He  sought  his  life  by  treasonous  shame ; 
And  this  way  now  doth  he  seek  the  same. 

II 


ROSE    MARY 

*'  So,  fair  lord,  such  a  thing  you  are  I 
But  we  too  watch  till  the  morning  star. 
Well,  June  is  kind  and  the  moon  is  clear : 
Saint  Judas  send  you  a  merry  cheer 
For  the  night  you  lie  at  Warisweir  ! 

'*Now,  sweet  daughter,  but  one  more  sight, 
And  you  may  lie  soft  and  sleep  to-night. 
We  know  in  the  vale  what  perils  be : 
Now  look  once  more  in  the  glass,  and  see 
If  over  the  hills  the  road  lies  free." 

Rose  Mary  pressed  to  her  mother's  cheek, 
And  almost  smiled  but  did  not  speak ; 
Then  turned  again  to  the  saving  spell. 
With  eyes  to  search  and  with  lips  to  tell 
The  heart  of  things  invisible. 

**  Again  the  shape  with  the  besom  grey 
Comes  back  to  sweep  the  clouds  away. 
Again  I  stand  where  the  roads  divide  ; 
But  now  all's  near  on  the  steep  hillside. 
And  a  thread  far  down  is  the  rivertide." 

'*  Ay,  child,  your  road  is  o'er  moor  and  moss. 

Past  Holycleugh  to  Holy  Cross. 

Our  hunters  lurk  in  the  valley's  wake, 

As  they  knew  which  way  the  chase  would  take 

Yet  search  the  hills  for  your  true  love's  sake." 

12 


ROSE    MARY 

**  Swift  and  swifter  the  waste  runs  by, 
And  nought  I  see  but  the  heath  and  the  sky ; 
No  brake  is  there  that  could  hide  a  spear, 
And  the  gaps  to  a  horseman's  sight  lie  clear ; 
Still  past  it  goes,  and  there's  nought  to  fear." 

**  Fear  no  trap  that  you  cannot  see, — 

They'd  not  lurk  yet  too  warily. 

Below  by  the  weir  they  lie  in  sight, 

And  take  no  heed  how  they  pass  the  night 

Till  close  they  crouch  with  the  morning  light. 

'*The  road  shifts  ever  and  brings  in  view 
Now  first  the  heights  of  Holycleugh  : 
Dark  they  stand  o'er  the  vale  below. 
And  hide  that  heaven  which  yet  shall  show 
The  thing  their  master's  heart  doth  know. 

'*  Where  the  road  looks  to  the  castle  steep, 
There  are  seven  hill-clefts  wide  and  deep : 
Six  mine  eyes  can  search  as  they  list. 
But  the  seventh  hollow  is  brimmed  with  mist ; 
If  aught  were  there,  it  might  not  be  wist." 

'* Small  hope,  my  girl,  for  a  helm  to  hide 
In  mists  that  cling  to  a  wild  moorside  : 
Soon  they  melt  with  the  wind  and  sun. 
And  scarce  would  wait  such  deeds  to  be  done 
God  send  their  snares  be  the  worst  to  shun." 


13 


ROSE    MARY 

*  *  Still  the  road  winds  ever  anew 
As  it  hastens  on  towards  Holycleugh ; 
And  ever  the  great  walls  loom  more  near, 
Till  the  castle-shadow,  steep  and  sheer, 
Drifts  like  a  cloud,  and  the  sky  is  clear.*' 

**  Enough,  my  daughter,"  the  mother  said. 
And  took  to  her  breast  the  bending  head ; 
**  Rest,  poor  head,  with  my  heart  below. 
While  love  still  lulls  you  as  long  ago  : 
For  all  is  learnt  that  we  need  to  know. 

*'  Long  the  miles  and  many  the  hours 
From  the  castle-height  to  the  abbey-towers ; 
But  here  the  journey  has  no  more  dread; 
Too  thick  with  life  is  the  whole  road  spread 
For  murder's  trembling  foot  to  tread." 

She  gazed  on  the  Beryl-stone  full  fain 
Ere  she  wrapped  it  close  in  her  robe  again : 
The  flickering  shades  were  dusk  and  dun. 
And  the  lights  throbbed  faint  in  unison, 
Like  a  high  heart  when  a  race  is  run. 

As  the  globe  slid  to  its  silken  gloom. 
Once  more  a  music  rained  through  the  room ; 
Low  it  splashed  like  a  sweet  star-spray. 
And  sobbed  like  tears  at  the  heart  of  May, 
And  died  as  laughter  dies  away. 


ROSE    MARY 

The  lady  held  her  breath  for  a  space,  ^'d 

And  then  she  looked  in  her  daughter's  face : 
But  wan  Rose  Mary  had  never  heard ; 
Deep  asleep  like  a  sheltered  bird 
She  lay  with  the  long  spell  minister'd.  »xi  iniA 

**  Ah  I  and  yet  I  must  leave  you,  dear. 

For  what  you  have  seen  your  knight  must  hear. 

Within  four  days,  by  the  help  of  God, 

He  comes  back  safe  to  his  heart's  abode  : 

Be  sure  he  shall  shun  the  valley-road." 

Rose  Mary  sank  with  a  broken  moan. 
And  lay  in  the  chair  and  slept  alone. 
Weary,  lifeless,  heavy  as  lead : 
Long  it  was  ere  she  raised  her  head 
And  rose  up  all  discomforted. 

She  searched  her  brain  for  a  vanished  thing. 
And  clasped  her  brows,  remembering ; 
Then  knelt  and  lifted  her  eyes  in  awe, 
And  sighed  with  a  long  sigh  sweet  to  draw  : — 
**  Thank  God,  thank  God,  thank  God  I  saw  I " 

The  lady  had  left  her  as  she  lay. 
To  seek  the  Knight  of  Heronhaye. 
But  first  she  clomb  by  a  secret  stair, 
And  knelt  at  a  carven  altar  fair. 
And  laid  the  precious  Beryl  there. 

15 


ROSE    MARY 

Its  girth  was  graved  with  a  mystic  rune 
In  a  tongue  long  dead  'neath  sun  and  moon 
A  priest  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre 
Read  that  writing  and  did  not  err ; 
And  her  lord  had  told  its  sense  to  her. 

She  breathed  the  words  in  an  undertone  : — 

**  None  sees  here  but  the  fure  alone. -^ 

**  And  oh  !  "  she  said,  **  what  rose  may  be 

In  Mary's  bower  more  pure  to  see 

Than  my  own  sweet  maiden  Rose  Mary  ?  " 


i6 


ROSE    MARY 


BERYL-SONG 


We  whose  home  is  the  Beryl^ 
Fire-spirits  of  dread  desire^ 
Who  entered  in 
By  a  secret  sin, 
^Gainst  whom  all  powers  that   strive  with    ours    are 
sterile, — 

We  cry.  Woe  to  thee,  mother  1 
What  hast  thou  taught  her,  the  girl  thy  daughter. 
That  she  and  none  other 
Should  this  dark  morrow  to  her  deadly  sorrow  imperil? 
What  were  her  eyes 
But  the  fiend's  own  spies, 
O  mother. 
And  shall  We  not  fee  her,  our  proper  prophet  and  seer? 
Go  to  her,  mother. 
Even  thou,  yea  thou  and  none  other ^ 

Thou,  from  the  Beryl: 
Her  fee  must  thou  take  her, 
'-r-      Her  fee  that  We  send,  and  make  her. 
Even  in  this  hour,  her  sin's  unsheltered  avower. 
Whose  steed  did  neigh. 

Riderless,  bridle-less. 
At  her  gate  before  it  was  day? 
Lo!  where  doth  hover 
The  soul  oj  her  lover? 

17 


ROSE    MARY 

She  sealed  his  doom^  she^  she  was  the  sworn  a-pfrover^- 
Whose  eyes  were  so  wondrous  wise. 
Yet  blind ^  ah!  blind  to  his  peril! 
For  stole  not  We  in 
Through  a  love-linked  sin^ 

'  Gainst  whom  all  powers  at  war  with  ours  are  sterile^ 
Fire-spirits  of  dread  desire^ 
We  whose  home  is  the  Beryl? 


i8 


ROSE    MARY 


PART  II 


^  ^  pALE  Rose  Mary,  what  shall  be  done 

1         With  a  rose  that  Mary  weeps  upon  ?  " 
**  Mother,  let  it  fall  from  the  tree. 
And  never  walk  where  the  strewn  leaves  be 
Till  winds  have  passed  and  the  path  is  free." 

**Sad  Rose  Mary,  what  shall  be  done 
With  a  cankered  flower  beneath  the  sun?" 
** Mother,  let  it  wait  for  the  night; 
Be  sure  its  shame  shall  be  out  of  sight 
Ere  the  moon  pale  or  the  east  grow  light." 

**Lost  Rose  Mary,  what  shall  be  done 
With  a  heart  that  is  but  a  broken  one?" 
*  *  Mother,  let  it  lie  where  it  must ; 
The  blood  was  drained  with  the  bitter  thrust, 
And  dust  is  all  that  sinks  in  the  dust." 

*'  Poor  Rose  Mary,  what  shall  I  do, — 
I,  your  mother,  that  loved  you?" 
*\0  my  mother,  and  is  love  gone? 
Then  seek  you  another  love  anon : 
Who  cares  what  shame  shall  lean  upon  ?  " 

19 


ROSE    MARY 

Low  drooped  trembling  Rose  Mary, 
Then  up  as  though  in  a  dream  stood  she. 
**  Come,  my  heart,  it  is  time  to  go ; 
This  is  the  hour  that  has  whispered  low 
When  thy  pulse  quailed  in  the  nights  we  know. 

"Yet  O  my  heart,  thy  shame  has  a  mate 
Who  will  not  leave  thee  desolate. 
Shame  for  shame,  yea  and  sin  for  sin  : 
Yet  peace  at  length  may  our  poor  souls  win 
If  love  for  love  be  found  therein. 

'*0  thou  who  seek'st  our  shrift  to-day," 
She  cried,  **0  James  of  Heronhaye  — 
Thy  sin  and  mine  was  for  love  alone ; 
And  oh  I  in  the  sight  of  God  'tis  known 
How  the  heart  has  since  made  heavy  moan. 

**  Three  days  yet ! "  she  said  to  her  heart ; 
**  But  then  he  comes,  and  we  will  not  part. 
God,  God  be  thanked  that  I  still  could  see  I 
Oh  I  he  shall  come  back  assuredly, 
But  where,  alas  I  must  he  seek  for  me  ? 

**  O  my  heart,  what  road  shall  we  roam 
Till  my  wedding-music  fetch  me  home  ? 
For  love's  shut  from  us  and  bides  afar. 
And  scorn  leans  over  the  bitter  bar 
And  knows  us  now  for  the  thing  we  are." 

20 


ROSE    MARY 

Tall  she  stood  with  a  cheek  flushed  high 
And  a  gaze  to  burn  the  heart-strings  by. 
'Twas  the  lightning-flash  o'er  sky  and  plain 
Ere  labouring  thunders  heave  the  chain 
From  the  floodgates  of  the  drowning  rain. 

The  mother  looked  on  the  daughter  still 

As  on  a  hurt  thing  that's  yet  to  kill. 

Then  wildly  at  length  the  pent  tears  came ; 

The  love  swelled  high  with  the  swollen  shame, 

And  their  hearts'  tempest  burst  on  them. 

Closely  locked,  they  clung  without  speech, 
And  the  mirrored  souls  shook  each  to  each, 
As  the  cloud-m'oon  and  the  water-moon 
Shake  face  to  face  when  the  dim  stars  swoon 
In  stormy  bowers  of  the  night's  mid-noon. 

They  swayed  together,  shuddering  sore, 
Till  the  mother's  heart  could  bear  no  more. 
'Twas  death  to  feel  her  own  breast  shake 
Even  to  the  very  throb  and  ache 
Of  the  burdened  heart  she  still  must  break. 

All  her  sobs  ceased  suddenly, 

And  she  sat  straight  up  but  scarce  could  see. 

*  *  O  daughter,  where  should  my  speech  begin  ? 

Your  heart  held  fast  its  secret  sin  : 

How  think  you,  child,  that  I  read  therein?" 

21 


ROSE    MARY 

'*  Ah  me  !  but  I  thought  not  how  it  came 

When  your  words  showed  that  you  knew  my  shame 

And  now  that  you  call  me  still  your  own, 

I  half  forget  you  have  ever  known. 

Did  you  read  my  heart  in  the  Beryl-stone  ?  " 

The  lady  answered  her  mournfully  : — 
*'  The  Beryl-stone  has  no  voice  for  me : 
But  when  you  charged  its  power  to  show 
The  truth  which  none  but  the  pure  may  know, 
Did  naught  speak  once  of  a  coming  woe?" 

Her  hand  was  close  to  her  daughter's  heart. 
And  it  felt  the  life-blood's  sudden  start : 
A  quick  deep  breath  did  the  damsel  draw, 
Like  the  struck  fawn  in  the  oakenshaw : 
«*  O  mother,"  she  cried,  **  but  still  I  saw  !" 

**  O  child,  my  child,  why  held  you  apart 
From  my  great  love  your  hidden  heart? 
Said  I  not  that  all  sin  must  chase 
From  the  spell's  sphere  the  spirits  of  grace, 
And  yield  their  rule  to  the  evil  race  ? 

*'  Ah  !  would  to  God  I  had  clearly  told 
How  strong  those  powers,  accurst  of  old  : 
Their  heart  is  the  ruined  house  of  lies ; 
O  girl,  they  can  seal  the  sinful  eyes. 
Or  show  the  truth  by  contraries  I " 

22 


ROSE    MARY 

The  daughter  sat  as  cold  as  a  stone, 

And  spoke  no  word  but  gazed  alone, 

Nor  moved,  though  her  mother  strove  a  space 

To  clasp  her  round  in  a  close  embrace, 

Because  she  dared  not  see  her  face. 

**  Oh  ! "  at  last  did  the  mother  cry, 
*'  Be  sure,  as  he  loved  you,  so  will  I ! 
Ah  !  still  and  dumb  is  the  bride,  I  trow ; 
But  cold  and  stark  as  the  winter  snow 
Is  the  bridegroom's  heart,  laid  dead  below ! 

**  Daughter,  daughter,  remember  you 
That  cloud  in  the  hills  by  Holycleugh? 
'Twas  a  Hell-screen  hiding  truth  away : 
There,  not  i'  the  vale,  the  ambush  lay, 
And  thence  was  the  dead  borne  home  to-day." 

Deep  the  flood  and  heavy  the  shock 
When  sea  meets  sea  in  the  riven  rock ; 
But  calm  is  the  pulse  that  shakes  the  sea 
To  the  prisoned  tide  of  doom  set  free 
In  the  breaking  heart  of  Rose  Mary. 

Once  she  sprang  as  the  heifer  springs 

With  the  wolfs  teeth  at  its  red  heart-strings : 

First  'twas  fire  in  her  breast  and  brain. 

And  then  scarce  hers  but  the  whole  world's  pain. 

As  she  gave  one  shriek  and  sank  again. 

23 


ROSE    MARY 

In  the  hair  dark-waved  the  face  lay  white 

As  the  moon  lies  in  the  lap  of  night ; 

And  as  night  through  which  no  moon  may  dart 

Lies  on  a  pool  in  the  woods  apart, 

So  lay  the  swoon  on  the  weary  heart. 

The  lady  felt  for  the  bosom's  stir, 
And  wildly  kissed  and  called  on  her ; 
Then  turned  away  with  a  quick  footfall, 
And  slid  the  secret  door  in  the  wall, 
And  clomb  the  strait  stair's  interval. 

There  above  in  the  altar-cell 
A  little  fountain  rose  and  fell : 
She  set  a  flask  to  the  water's  flow. 
And,  backward  hurrying,  sprinkled  now 
The  still  cold  breast  and  the  pallid  brow. 

I 
Scarce  cheek  that  warmed  or  breath  on  the  air,  ^ 

Yet  something  told  that  life  was  there. 

**  Ah  !  not  with  the  heart  the  body  dies,!  " 

The  lady  moaned  in  a  bitter  wise ; 

Then  wrung  her  hands  and  hid  her  eyes. 

**  Alas  !  and  how  may  I  meet  again 
In  the  same  poor  eyes  the  self-same  pain? 
What  help  can  I  seek,  such  grief  to  guide? 
Ah !  one  alone  might  avail,"  she  cried, — 
**The  priest  who  prays  at  the  dead  man's  side." 

24 


ROSE    MARY 

The  lady  arose,  and  sped  down  all 
The  winding  stairs  to  the  castle-hall. 
Long-known  valley  and  wood  and  stream, 
As  the  loopholes  passed,  naught  else  did  seem 
Than  the  torn  threads  of  a  broken  dream. 

The  hall  was  full  of  the  castle-folk; 
The  women  wept,  but  the  men  scarce  spoke. 
As  the  lady  crossed  the  rush-strewn  floor, 
The  throng  fell  backward,  murmuring  sore, 
And  pressed  outside  round  the  open  door. 

A  stranger  shadow  hung  on  the  hall 
Than  the  dark  pomp  of  a  funeral. 
'Mid  common  sights  that  were  there  alway, 
As  'twere  a  chance  of  the  passing  day, 
On  the  ingle-bench  the  dead  man  lay. 

A  priest  who  passed  by  Holycleugh 

The  tidings  brought  when  the  day  was  new. 

He  guided  them  who  had  fetched  the  dead ; 

And  since  that  hour,  unwearied. 

He  knelt  in  prayer  at  the  low  bier's  head. 

Word  had  gone  to  his  own  domain 

That  in  evil  wise  the  knight  was  slain : 

Soon  the  spears  must  gather  apace 

And  the  hunt  be  hard  on  the  hunters'  trace  ; 

But  all  things  yet  lay  still  for  a  space. 

25 


ROSE    MARY 

As  the  lady's  hurried  step  drew  near, 
The  kneeling  priest  looked  up  to  her. 
*'  Father,  death  is  a  grievous  thing ; 
But  oh  I  the  woe  has  a  sharper  sting 
That  craves  by  me  your  ministering. 

*  *  AlasTor  the  child  that  should  have  wed 
This  noble  knight  here  lying  dead  ! 
Dead  in  hope,  with  all  blessed  boon 
Of  love  thus  rent  from  her  heart  ere  noon, 
I  left  her  laid  in  a  heavy  swoon. 

**  O  haste  to  the  open  bower-chamber  j 

That's  topmost  as  you  mount  the  stair : 

Seek  her,  father,  ere  yet  she  wake ; 

Your  words,  not  mine,  be  the  first  to  slake  | 

This  poor  heart's  fire,  for  Christ's  sweet  sake  !  ♦       .  | 

**  God  speed  I "  she  said  as  the  priest  passed  through, 
*'  And  I  ere  long  will  be  with  you." 
Then  low  on  the  hearth  her  knees  sank  prone ; 
She  signed  all  folk  from  the  threshold-stone. 
And  gazed  in  the  dead  man's  face  alone. 

The  fight  for  life  found  record  yet 
In  the  clenched  lips  and  the  teeth  hard-set ; 
The  wrath  from  the  bent  brow  was  not  gone. 
And  stark  in  the  eyes  the  hate  still  shone 
Of  that  they  last  had  looked  upon. 

26 


ROSE     MARY 

The  blazoned  coat  was  rent  on  his  breast 
Where  the  golden  field  was  goodliest ; 
But  the  shivered  sword,  close-gripped,  could  tell 
That  the  blood  shed  round  him  where  he  fell 
Was  not  all  his  in  the  distant  dell. 

The  lady  recked  of  the  corpse  no  whit, 
But  saw  the  soul  and  spoke  to  it : 
A  light  there  was  in  her  steadfast  eyes, — 
The  fire  of  mortal  tears  and  sighs 
That  pity  and  love  immortalize. 

**  By  thy  death  have  I  learnt  to-day 

Thy  deed,  O  James  of  Heronhaye  ! 

Great  wrong  thou  hast  done  to  me  and  mine ; 

And  haply  God  hath  wrought  for  a  sign 

By  our  blind  deed  this  doom  of  thine. 

*<Thy  shrift,  alas  !  thou  wast  not  to  win ; 
But  may  death  shrive  thy  soul  herein ! 
Full  well  do  I  know  thy  love  should  be 
Even  yet  —  had  life  but  stayed  with  thee  — 
Our  honour's  strong  security." 

She  stooped,  and  said  with  a  sob's  low  stir, — 
*'  Peace  be  thine, —  but  what  peace  for  her?" 
But  ere  to  the  brow  her  lips  were  press'd, 
She  marked,  half-hid  in  the  riven  vest, 
A  packet  close  to  the  dead  man's  breast. 

27 


ROSE    MARY 

'Neath  surcoat  pierced  and  broken  mail 
It  lay  on  the  blood-stained  bosom  pale. 
The  clot  clung  round  it,  dull  and  dense, 
And  a  faintness  seized  her  mortal  sense 
As  she  reached  her  hand  and  drew  it  thence. 

'Twas  steeped  in  the  heart's  flood  welling  high 
From  the  heart  it  there  had  rested  by  : 
'Twas  glued  to  a  broidered  fragment  gay, — 
A  shred  by  spear-thrust  rent  away 
From  the  heron-wings  of  Heronhaye. 

She  gazed  on  the  thing  with  piteous  eyne : — 
**Alas,  poor  child,  some  pledge  of  thine  ! 
Ah  me  !  in  this  troth  the  hearts  were  twain, 
And  one  hath  ebbed  to  this  crimson  stain, 
And  when  shall  the  other  throb  again?" 

She  opened  the  packet  heedfully ; 
The  blood  was  stiff,  and  it  scarce  might  be. 
She  found  but  a  folded  paper  there. 
And  round  it,  twined  with  tenderest  care, 
A  long  bright  tress  of  golden  hair. 

Even  as  she  looked,  she  saw  again 
That  dark-haired  face  in  its  swoon  of  pain : 
It  seemed  a  snake  with  a  golden  sheath 
Crept  near,  as  a  slow  flame  flickereth. 
And  stung  her  daughter's  heart  to  death. 

28 


ROSE    MARY 

She  loosed  the  tress,  but  her  hand  did  shake 

As  though  indeed  she  had  touched  a  snake ; 

And  next  she  undid  the  paper's  fold, 

But  that  too  trembled  in  her  hold. 

And  the  sense  scarce  grasped  the  tale  it  told. 

**My  heart's  sweet  lord,"  ('twas  thus  she  read,) 

**  At  length  our  love  is  garlanded. 

At  Holy  Cross,  within  eight  days'  space, 

I  seek  my  shrift ;  and  the  time  and  place 

Shall  fit  thee  too  for  thy  soul's  good  grace. 

**  From  Holycleugh  on  the  seventh  day 
My  brother  rides,  and  bides  away : 
And  long  or  e'er  he  is  back,  mine  own. 
Afar  where  the  face  of  fear's  unknown 
We  shall  be  safe  with  our  love  alone, 

**  Ere  yet  at  the  shrine  my  knees  I  bow, 

I  shear  one  tress  for  our  holy  vow. 

As  round  these  words  these  threads  I  wind, 

So,  eight  days  hence,  shall  our  loves  be  twined. 

Says  my  lord's  poor  lady,  Jocelind." 

She  read  it  twice,  with  a  brain  in  thrall, 
And  then  its  echo  told  her  all. 
O'er  brows  low-fall'n  her  hands  she  drew  : — 
'*0  God !"  she  said,  as  her  hands  fell  too, — 
**The  Warden's  sister  of  Holycleugh  ! " 

29 


ROSE    MARY 

She  rose  upright  with  a  long  low  moan, 
And  stared  in  the  dead  man's  face  new-known. 
Had  it  lived  indeed?     She  scarce  could  tell : 
'Twas  a  cloud  where  fiends  had  come  to  dwell,- 
A  mask  that  hung  on  the  gate  of  Hell. 

She  lifted  the  lock  of  gleaming  hair 

And  smote  the  lips  and  left  it  there. 

'*  Here's  gold  that  Hell  shall  take  for  thy  toll  I 

Full  well  hath  thy  treason  found  its  goal, 

O  thou  dead  body  and  damned  soul  I " 

She  turned,  sore  dazed,  for  a  voice  was  near, 
And  she  knew  that  some  one  called  to  her. 
On  many  a  column  fair  and  tall 
A  high  court  ran  round  the  castle-hall ; 
And  thence  it  was  that  the  priest  did  call. 

**  I  sought  your  child  where  you  bade  me  go. 
And  in  rooms  around  and  rooms  below ; 
But  where,  alas  I  may  the  maiden  be? 
Fear  nought, — we  shall  find  her  speedily, — 
But  come,  come  hither,  and  seek  with  me." 

She  reached  the  stair  like  a  lifelorn  thing. 
But  hastened  upward  murmuring  : — 
**Yea,  Death's  is  a  face  that's  fell  to  see; 
But  bitterer  pang  Life  hoards  for  thee, 
Thou  broken  heart  of  Rose  Mary  1 " 

30 


ROSE    MARY 


BERYL-SONG 


We  whose  throne  is  the  Beryl ^ 
Dire-gifted  spirits  of  fire  ^ 
Who  for  a  twin 
Leash  Sorrow  to  Sin^ 
Who  on  no  fiower  refrain  to  lour  with  -perils  — 

We  cry, —  O  desolate  daughter! 
Thou  and  thy  mother  share  newer  shame  with  each  other 
Than  last  nighfs  slaughter. 
Awake  and  tremble,  for  our  curses  assemble! 
What  more,  that  thou  know^st  not  yet, — 
That  life  nor  death  shall  forget  f 
No  helffrom  Heaven, — thy  woes  heart-riven  are  sterile  ! 

O,  once  a  maiden. 
With  yet  worse  sorrow  can  any  morrow  be  laden  ? 
It  waits  for  thee. 
It  looms,  it  must  be, 
O  lost  among  women ,  — 
It  comes  and  thou  canst  not  flee. 
Amen  to  the  omen. 
Says  the  voice  of  the  BeryL 

Thou  sleef^stP     Awake, — 
What  dar'st  thou  yet  for  his  sake. 
Who  each  for  other  did  God^s  own  Future  imperil? 
Dost  dare  to  live 
^Mid  the  pangs  each  hour  must  give  ? 

31 


ROSE    MARY 

Nay^  rather  die, — 
With  him  thy  lover  ^neath  HelVs  cloud-cover  to  fly, — 
Hopeless,  yet  not  apart. 
Cling  heart  to  heart. 
And    beat    through    the    nether   storm-eddying  winds 
together  f 

Shall  this  be  so  ? 
There  thou  shall  meet  him,  but  may^st  thou  greet  him.  ? 

ah  no! 
He  loves,  but  thee  he  hoped  never  more  to  see, — 
He  sighed  as  he  died. 
But  with  never  a  thought  for  thee. 
Alone! 
Alone,  for  ever  alone, — 
Whose  eyes  were   such    wondrous   spies  for   the  fate 
foreshown  ! 

Lo!  have  not  We  leashed  the  twin 
Of  endless  Sorrow  to  Sin,  — 
Who  on  no  flower  refrain  to  lour  with  peril,  — 
Dire-gifted  spirits  of  fire. 
We  whose  throne  is  the  Beryl? 


32 


ROSE    MARY 


PART  III 


A  SWOON  that  breaks  is  the  whelming  wave 
When  help  comes  late  but  still  can  save. 
With  all  blind  throes  is  the  instant  rife,  — 
Hurtling  clangour  and  clouds  at  strife,  — 
The  breath  of  death,  but  the  kiss  of  life. 

The  night  lay  deep  on  Rose  Mary's  heart, 
For  her  swoon  was  death's  kind  counterpart : 
The  dawn  broke  dim  on  Rose  Mary's  soul, — 
No  hill-crown's  heavenly  aureole, 
But  a  wild  gleam  on  a  shaken  shoal. 

Her  senses  gasped  in  the  sudden  air, 

And  she  looked  around,  but  none  was  there. 

She  felt  the  slackening  frost  distil 

Through  her  blood  the  last  ooze  dull  and  chill : 

Her  lids  were  dry  and  her  lips  were  still. 

Her  tears  had  flooded  her  heart  again ; 
As  after  a  long  day's  bitter  rain, 
At  dusk  when  the  wet  flower-cups  shrink. 
The  drops  run  in  from  the  beaded  brink, 
And  all  the  close-shut  petals  drink. 

33 


ROSE    MARY 

Again  her  sighs  on  her  heart  were  rolled ; 
As  the  wind  that  long  has  swept  the  wold,  — 
Whose  moan  was  made  with  the  moaning  sea, 
Beats  out  its  breath  in  the  last  torn  tree. 
And  sinks  at  length  in  lethargy. 

She  knew  she  had  waded  bosom-deep 
Along  death's  bank  in  the  sedge  of  sleep  : 
All  else  was  lost  to  her  clouded  mind ; 
Nor,  looking  back,  could  she  see  defin'd 
O'er  the  dim  dumb  waste  what  lay  behind. 

Slowly  fades  the  sun  from  the  wall 
Till  day  lies  dead  on  the  sun-dial : 
And  now  in  Rose  Mary's  lifted  eye 
*Twas  shadow  alone  that  made  reply 
To  the  set  face  of  the  soul's  dark  sky. 

Yet  still  through  her  soul  there  wandered  past 
Dread  phantoms  borne  on  a  wailing  blast, — 
Death  and  sorrow  and  sin  and  shame ; 
And,  murmured  still,  to  her  lips  there  came 
Her  mother's  and  her  lover's  name. 

How  to  ask,  and  what  thing  to  know? 
She  might  not  stay  and  she  dared  not  go. 
From  fires  unseen  these  smoke-clouds  curled ; 
But  where  did  the  hidden  curse  lie  furled  ? 
And  how  to  seek  through  the  weary  world? 

34 


I 


ROSE    MARY 

With  toiling  breath  she  rose  from  the  floor 
And  dragged  her  steps  to  an  open  door : 
*Twas  the  secret  panel  standing  wide, 
As  the  lady's  hand  had  let  it  bide 
In  hastening  back  to  her  daughter's  side. 

She  passed,  but  reeled  with  a  dizzy  brain 
And  smote  the  door  which  closed  again. 
She  stood  within  by  the  darkling  stair, 
But  her  feet  might  mount  more  freely  there, — 
Twas  the  open  light  most  blinded  her. 

Within  her  mind  no  wonder  grew 

At  the  secret  path  she  never  knew : 

All  ways  alike  were  strange  to  her  now, — 

One  field  bare-ridged  from  the  spirit's  plough, 

One  thicket  black  with  the  cypress-bough. 

Once  she  thought  that  she  heard  her  name ; 
And  she  paused,  but  knew  not  whence  it  came. 
Down  the  shadowed  stair  a  faint  ray  fell 
That  guided  the  weary  footsteps  well 
Till  it  led  her  up  to  the  altar-cell. 

No  change  there  was  on  Rose  Mary's  face 
As  she  leaned  in  the  portal's  narrow  space : 
Still  she  stood  by  the  pillar's  stem, 
Hand  and  bosom  and  garment's  hem, 
As  the  soul  stands  by  at  the  requiem. 

35 


ROSE    MARY 

The  altar-cell  was  a  dome  low-lit, 

And  a  veil  hung  in  the  midst  of  it : 

At  the  pole-points  of  its  circling  girth 

Four  symbols  stood  of  the  world's  first  birth,- 

Air  and  water  and  fire  and  earth. 

To  the  north,  a  fountain  glittered  free ; 
To  the  south,  there  glowed  a  red  fruit-tree ; 
To  the  east,  a  lamp  flamed  high  and  fair ; 
To  the  west,  a  crystal  casket  rare 
Held  fast  a  cloud  of  the  fields  of  air. 

The  painted  walls  were  a  mystic  show 

Of  time's  ebb-tide  and  overflow ; 

His  hoards  long-locked  and  conquering  key, 

His  service-fires  that  in  heaven  be. 

And  earth-wheels  whirled  perpetually. 

Rose  Mary  gazed  from  the  open  door 
As  on  idle  things  she  cared  not  for, — 
The  fleeting  shapes  of  an  empty  tale  ; 
Then  stepped  with  a  heedless  visage  pale. 
And  lifted  aside  the  altar-veil. 

The  altar  stood  from  its  curved  recess 
In  a  coiling  serpent's  life-likeness : 
Even  such  a  serpent  evermore 
Lies  deep  asleep  at  the  world's  dark  core 
Till  the  last  Voice  shake  the  sea  and  shore. 

36 


ROSE    MARY 

From  the  altar-cloth  a  book  rose  spread 
And  tapers  burned  at  the  altar-head ; 
And  there  in  the  altar-midst  alone, 
'Twixt  wings  of  a  sculptured  beast  unknown, 
Rose  Mary  saw  the  Beryl-stone. 

Firm  it  sat  'twixt  the  hollowed  wings, 
As  an  orb  sits  in  the  hand  of  kings : 
And  lo  I  for  that  Foe  whose  curse  far-flown 
Had  bound  her  life  with  a  burning  zone. 
Rose  Mary  knew  the  Beryl-stone. 

Dread  is  the  meteor's  blazing  sphere 
When  the  poles  throb  to  its  blind  career ; 
But  not  with  a  light  more  grim  and  ghast 
Thereby  is  the  future  doom  forecast. 
Than  now  this  sight  brought  back  the  past. 

The  hours  and  minutes  seemed  to  whirr 
In  a  clanging  swarm  that  deafened  her ; 
They  stung  her  heart  to  a  writhing  flame, 
And  marshalled  past  in  its  glare  they  came,— 
Death  and  sorrow  and  sin  and  shame. 

Round  the  Beryl's  sphere  she  saw  them  pass 
And  mock  her  eyes  from  the  fated  glass  : 
One  by  one  in  a  fiery  train 
The  dead  hours  seemed  to  wax  and  wane. 
And  burned  till  all  was  known  again. 

37 


ROSE    MARY 

From  the  drained  heart's  fount  there  rose  no  cry, 
There  sprang  no  tears,  for  the  source  was  dry. 
Held  in  the  hand  of  some  heavy  law, 
Her  eyes  she  might  not  once  withdraw 
Nor  shrink  away  from  the  thing  she  saw. 

Even  as  she  gazed,  through  all  her  blood 
The  flame  was  quenched  in  a  coming  flood : 
Out  of  the  depth  of  the  hollow  gloom 
On  her  soul's  bare  sands  she  felt  it  boom, — 
The  measured  tide  of  a  sea  of  doom. 

Three  steps  she  took  through  the  altar-gate, 
And  her  neck  reared  and  her  arms  grew  straight 
The  sinews  clenched  like  a  serpent's  throe. 
And  the  face  was  white  in  the  dark  hair's  flow. 
As  her  hate  beheld  what  lay  below. 

Dumb  she  stood  in  her  malisons, — 
A  silver  statue  tressed  with  bronze  : 
As  the  fabled  head  by  Perseus  mown. 
It  seemed  in  sooth  that  her  gaze  alone 
Had  turned  the  carven  shapes  to  stone. 

O'er  the  altar-sides  on  either  hand 
There  hung  a  dinted  helm  and  brand : 
By  strength  thereof,  'neath  the  Sacred  Sign, 
That  bitter  gift  o'er  the  salt  sea-brine 
Her  father  brought  from  Palestine. 

38 


ROSE    MARY 

Rose  Mary  moved  with  a  stern  accord 

And  reached  her  hand  to  her  father's  sword ; 

Nor  did  she  stir  her  gaze  one  whit 

From  the  thing  whereon  her  brows  were  knit ; 

But  gazing  still,  she  spoke  to  it. 

'*  O  ye,  three  times  accurst,"  she  said, 
"  By  whom  this  stone  is  tenanted  ! 
Lo !  here  ye  came  by  a  strong  sin's  might ; 
Yet  a  sinner's  hand  that's  weak  to  smite 
Shall  send  you  hence  ere  the  day  be  night. 

**  This  hour  a  clear  voice  bade  me  know 
My  hand  shall  work  your  overthrow : 
Another  thing  in  mine  ear  it  spake, — 
With  the  broken  spell  my  life  shall  break. 
I  thank  Thee,  God,  for  the  dear  death's  sake  I 

<*  And  he  Thy  heavenly  minister 

Who  swayed  ere  while  this  spell-bound  sphere  ,- 

My  parting  soul  let  him  haste  to  greet. 

And  none  but  he  be  guide  for  my  feet 

To  where  Thy  rest  is  made  complete." 

Then  deep  she  breathed,  with  a  tender  moan  :- 

**  My  love,  my  lord,  my  only  one  ! 

Even  as  I  held  the  cursed  clue, 

When  thee,  through  me,  these  foul  ones  slew,- 

By  mine  own  deed  shall  they  slay  me  too  ! 

39 


ROSE    MARY 

'<  Even  while  they  speed  to  Hell,  my  love, 

Two  hearts  shall  meet  in  Heaven  above. 

Our  shrift  thou  sought'st,  but  might'st  not  bring : 

And  oh  !  for  me  'tis  a  blessed  thing 

To  work  hereby  our  ransoming. 

''  One  were  our  hearts  in  joy  and  pain. 
And  our  souls  e'en  now  grow  one  again. 
And  O  my  love,  if  our  souls  are  three, 
O  thine  and  mine  shall  the  third  soul  be, — 
One  threefold  love  eternally." 

Her  eyes  were  soft  as  she  spoke  apart. 

And  the  lips  smiled  to  the  broken  heart : 

But  the  glance  was  dark  and  the  forehead  scored 

With  the  bitter  frown  of  hate  restored, 

As  her  two  hands  swung  the  heavy  sword. 

Three  steps  back  from  her  Foe  she  trod : — 
**  Love,  for  thy  sake  !     In  Thy  Name,  O  God  1 " 
In  the  fair  white  hands  small  strength  was  shown ; 
Yet  the  blade  flashed  high  and  the  edge  fell  prone. 
And  she  cleft  the  heart  of  the  Beryl-stone. 

What  living  flesh  in  the  thunder-cloud 

Hath  sat  and  felt  heaven  cry  aloud  ? 

Or  known  how  the  levin's  pulse  may  beat? 

Or  wrapped  the  hour  when  the  whirlwinds  meet 

About  its  breast  for  a  winding-sheet? 

40 


ROSE    MARY 

Who  hath  crouched  at  the  world's  deep  heart 
While  the  earthquake  rends  its  loins  apart? 
Or  walked  far  under  the  seething  main 
While  overhead  the  heavens  ordain 
The  tempest-towers  of  the  hurricane  ? 

Who  hath  seen  or  what  ear  hath  heard 
The  secret  things  unregister'd 
Of  the  place  where  all  is  past  and  done 
And  tears  and  laughter  sound  as  one 
In  Hell's  unhallowed  unison? 

Nay,  is  it  writ  how  the  fiends  despair 
In  earth  and  water  and  fire  and  air? 
Even  so  no  mortal  tongue  may  tell 
How  to  the  clang  of  the  sword  that  fell 
The  echoes  shook  the  altar-cell. 

When  all  was  still  on  the  air  again 
The  Beryl-stone  lay  cleft  in  twain ; 
The  veil  was  rent  from  the  riven  dome ; 
And  every  wind  that's  winged  to  roam 
Might  have  the  ruined  place  for  home. 

The  fountain  no  more  glittered  free ; 
The  fruit  hung  dead  on  the  leafless  tree ; 
The  flame  of  the  lamp  had  ceased  to  flare ; 
And  the  crystal  casket  shattered  there 
Was  emptied  now  of  its  cloud  of  air. 

41' 


ROSE    MARY 

And  lo !  on  the  ground  Rose  Mary  lay, 
With  a  cold  brow  like  the  snows  ere  May, 
With  a  cold  breast  like  the  earth  till  Spring, 
With  such  a  smile  as  the  June  days  bring 
When  the  year  grows  warm  for  harvesting. 

The  death  she  had  won  might  leave  no  trace 
On  the  soft  sweet  form  and  gentle  face  : 
In  a  gracious  sleep  she  seemed  to  lie ; 
And  over  her  head  her  hand  on  high 
Held  fast  the  sword  she  triumphed  by. 

'Twas  then  a  clear  voice  said  in  the  room  :  — 
**  Behold  the  end  of  the  heavy  doom. 
O  come,  —  for  thy  bitter  love's  sake  blest; 
By  a  sweet  path  now  thou  journeyest, 
And  I  will  lead  thee  to  thy  rest. 

**  Me  thy  sin  by  Heaven's  sore  ban 
Did  chase  erewhile  from  the  talisman : 
But  to  my  heart,  as  a  conquered  home. 
In  glory  of  strength  thy  footsteps  come 
Who  hast  thus  cast  forth  my  foes  therefrom. 

**  Already  thy  heart  remembereth 
No  more  his  name  thou  sought'st  in  death  : 
For  under  all  deeps,  all  heights  above, — 
So  wide  the  gulf  in  the  midst  thereof, — 
Are  Hell  of  Treason  and  Heaven  of  Love. 


42 


ROSE    MARY 

*'  Thee,  true  soul,  shall  thy  truth  prefer 
To  blessed  Mary's  rose-bower : 
Warmed  and  lit  is  thy  place  afar 
With  guerdon-fires  of  the  sweet  Love-star 
Where  hearts  of  steadfast  lovers  are  : — 

*'  Though  naught  for  the  poor  corpse  lying  here 
Remain  to-day  but  the  cold  white  bier, 
But  burial-chaunt  and  bended  knee, 
But  sighs  and  tears  that  heaviest  be, 
But  rent  rose-flower  and  rosemary." 


43 


ROSE    MARY 


BERYL-SONG 

We,  cast  forth  from  the  Beryl, 
Gyre-circling  spirits  offre, 
Whose  pangs  begin 
With  God^s  grace  to  sin , 
For  whose  spent  powers  the  immortal  hours  are  sterile, — 

Woe!  must  We  behold  this  mother 
Find  grace  in  her  dead  child^s  face,  and  doubt  of  none 

other 
But   that   perfect    pardon,    alas!    hath    assured    her 
guerdon  ? 

Woe  1  must  We  behold  this  daughter, 
Made  clean  from  the  soil  of  sin  wherewith    We  had 
fraught  her. 

Shake  off  a  man^s  blood  like  water  ? 
Write  up  her  story 
On  the  Gate  of  Heaven's  glory, 
Whom  there  We  behold  so  fair  in  shining  apparel. 
And  beneath  her  the  ruin 
Of  our  own  undoing! 

Alas,  the  Beryl! 
We  had  for  afoeman 
But  one  weak  woman  ; 
In  one  dafs  strife. 
Her  hope  fell  dead  from  her  life  ; 

44 


ROSE    MARY 

And  yet  no  iron, 
Her  soul  to  environ. 
Could  this  manslayer,  this  false  soothsayer  imperii! 
JLo,  where  she  bows 
In  the  Holy  House! 
Who  now  shall  dissever  her  soul  from  its  joy  for  ever. 
While  every  ditty 
Of  love  and  plentiful  j>ity 
Fills  the  White  City, 
And  the  floor  of  Heaven  to  her  feet  for  ever  is  given  f 
Hark,  a  voice  cries  ^^FleeT* 
Woe  I  woe  I  what  shelter  have  We, 
Whose  pangs  begin 
With  God's  grace  to  sin. 
For  whose  spent  powers  the  immortal  hours  are  sterile. 
Gyre-circling  spirits  offlre. 
We,  cast  forth  from  the  Beryl  P 


I 


45 


THE  WHITE  SHIP 


i 


THE  WHITE   SHIP 
Henry  I.  of  England  —  2 5th  Nov.,  1120 

BY  none  but  me  can  the  tale  be  told, 
The  butcher  of  Rouen,  poor  Berold. 
(^Lands  are  swayed  by  a  King  on  a  throne.) 
Twas  a  royal  train  put  forth  to  sea. 
Yet  the  tale  can  be  told  by  none  but  me. 
(  The  sea  hath  no  King  but  God  alone,) 

King  Henry  held  it  as  life's  whole  gain 
That  after  his  death  his  son  should  reign. 

Twas  so  in  my  youth  I  heard  men  say. 
And  my  old  age  calls  it  back  to-day. 

King  Henry  of  England's  realm  was  he, 
And  Henry  Duke  of  Normandy. 

The  times  had  changed  when  on  either  coast 
**  Clerkly  Harry  "  was  all  his  boast. 

Of  ruthless  strokes  full  many  an  one 

He  had  struck  to  crown  himself  and  his  son ; 

And  his  elder  brother's  eyes  were  gone. 

49 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

And  when  to  the  chase  his  court  would  crowd, 

The  poor  flung  ploughshares  on  his  road, 

And  shrieked  :  **  Our  cry  is  from  King  to  God  I  " 

But  all  the  chiefs  of  the  English  land 
Had  knelt  and  kissed  the  Prince's  hand. 

And  next  with  his  son  he  sailed  to  France 
To  claim  the  Norman  allegiance  : 

And  every  baron  in  Normandy 
Had  taken  the  oath  of  fealty. 

'Twas  sworn  and  sealed,  and  the  day  had  come 
When  the  King  and  the  Prince  might  journey  home 

For  Christmas  cheer  is  to  home  hearts  dear, 
And  Christmas  now  was  drawing  near. 

Stout  Fitz-Stephen  came  to  the  King, — 
A  pilot  famous  in  seafaring ; 

And  he  held  to  the  King,  in  all  men's  sight, 
A  mark  of  gold  for  his  tribute's  right. 

**  Liege  Lord  I  my  father  guided  the  ship 
From  whose  boat  your  father's  foot  did  slip 
When  he  caught  the  English  soil  in  his  grip, 

50 


I 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

**  And  cried  :   *  By  this  clasp  I  claim  command 
O'er  every  rood  of  English  land  ! ' 

**  He  was  borne  to  the  realm  you  rule  o'er  now 
In  that  ship  with  the  archer  carved  at  her  prow : 

"  And  thither  I'll  bear,  an'  it  be  my  due, 
Your  father's  son  and  his  grandson  too. 

**  The  famed  White  Ship  is  mine  in  the  bay ; 
From  Harfleur's  harbour  she  sails  to-day, 

**  With  masts  fair-pennoned  as  Norman  spears 
And  with  fifty  well-tried  mariners." 

Quoth  the  King  :   **  My  ships  are  chosen  each  one, 
But  I'll  not  say  nay  to  Stephen's  son. 

**  My  son  and  daughter  and  fellowship 
Shall  cross  the  water  in  the  White  Ship." 

The  King  set  sail  with  the  eve's  south  wind, 
And  soon  he  left  that  coast  behind. 

The  Prince  and  all  his,  a  princely  show. 
Remained  in  the  good  White  Ship  to  go. 

With  noble  knights  and  with  ladies  fair, 
With  courtiers  and  sailors  gathered  there, 
Three  hundred  living  souls  we  were : 

51 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

And  I  Berold  was  the  meanest  hind 
In  all  that  train  to  the  Prince  assigned. 

The  Prince  was  a  lawless  shameless  youth ; 
From  his  father's  loins  he  sprang  without  ruth : 

Eighteen  years  till  then  he  had  seen, 
And  the  devil's  dues  in  him  were  eighteen. 

And  now  he  cried  :  **  Bring  wine  from  below  ; 
Let  the  sailors  revel  ere  yet  they  row : 

*'Our  speed  shall  o'ertake  my  father's  flight 
Though  we  sail  from  the  harbour  at  midnight." 

The  rowers  made  good  cheer  without  check ; 

The  lords  and  ladies  obeyed  his  beck ; 

The  night  was  light,  and  they  danced  on  the  deck. 

But  at  midnight's  stroke  they  cleared  the  bay, 
And  the  White  Ship  furrowed  the  water-way. 

The  sails  were  set,  and  the  oars  kept  tune 
To  the  double  flight  of  the  ship  and  the  moon  : 

Swifter  and  swifter  the  White  Ship  sped 
Till  she  flew  as  the  spirit  flies  from  the  dead : 

As  white  as  a  lily  glimmered  she 
Like  a  ship's  fair  ghost  upon  the  sea. 

52 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

And  the  Prince  cried,  **  Friends,  'tis  the  hour  to  sing  ! 
Is  a  songbird's  course  so  swift  on  the  wing  ?  " 

And  under  the  winter  stars'  still  throng. 

From  brown  throats,  white  throats,  merry  and  strong, 

The  knights  and  the  ladies  raised  a  song. 

A  song,  — nay,  a  shriek  that  rent  the  sky, 
That  leaped  o'er  the  deep  !  — the  grievous  cry 
Of  three  hundred  living  that  now  must  die. 

An  instant  shriek  that  sprang  to  the  shock 
As  the  ship's  keel  felt  the  sunken  rock. 

'Tis  said  that  afar  —  a  shrill  strange  sigh  — 
The  King's  ships  heard  it  and  knew  not  why. 

Pale  Fitz-Stephen  stood  by  the  helm 

'Mid  all  those  folk  that  the  waves  must  whelm. 

A  great  King's  heir  for  the  waves  to  whelm, 
And  the  helpless  pilot  pale  at  the  helm  ! 

The  ship  was  eager  and  sucked  athirst. 

By  the  stealthy  stab  of  the  sharp  reef  pierc'd  : 

And  like  the  moil  round  a  sinking  cup, 
The  waters  against  her  crowded  up. 

53 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

A  moment  the  pilot's  senses  spin,  — 

The  next  he  snatched  the  Prince  'mid  the  din, 

Cut  the  boat  loose,  and  the  youth  leaped  in. 

A  few  friends  leaped  with  him,  standing  near. 
' '  Row  !  the  sea's  smooth  and  the  night  is  clear  ! " 

**  What !  none  to  be  saved  but  these  and  I?  " 
**  Row,  row  as  you'd  live  !     All  here  must  die  I  " 

Out  of  the  churn  of  the  choking  ship. 
Which  the  gulf  grapples  and  the  waves  strip, 
They  struck  with  the  strained  oars'  flash  and  dip. 

'Twas  then  o'er  the  splitting  bulwarks'  brim 
The  Prince's  sister  screamed  to  him. 

He  gazed  aloft,  still  rowing  apace. 

And  through  the  whirled  surf  he  knew  her  face. 

To  the  toppling  decks  clave  one  and  all 
As  a  fly  cleaves  to  a  chamber-wall. 

I  Berold  was  clinging  anear ; 

I  prayed  for  myself  and  quaked  with  fear. 

But  I  saw  his  eyes  as  he  looked  at  her. 

He  knew  her  face  and  he  heard  her  cry. 
And  he  said,   **  Put  back  !  she  must  not  die  !  " 

54 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

And  back  with  the  current's  force  they  reel 
Like  a  leaf  that's  drawn  to  a  water-wheel. 

'Neath  the  ship's  travail  they  scarce  might  float, 
But  he  rose  and  stood  in  the  rocking  boat. 

Low  the  poor  ship  leaned  on  the  tide  : 
O'er  the  naked  keel  as  she  best  might  slide, 
The  sister  toiled  to  the  brother's  side. 

He  reached  an  oar  to  her  from  below, 
And  stiffened  his  arms  to  clutch  her  so. 

But  now  from  the  ship  some  spied  the  boat, 
And  *'  Saved  !"  was  the  cry  from  many  a  throat. 

And  down  to  the  boat  they  leaped  and  fell : 

It  turned  as  a  bucket  turns  in  a  well. 

And  nothing  was  there  but  the  surge  and  swell. 

The  Prince  that  was  and  the  King  to  come, 
There  in  an  instant  gone  to  his  doom. 

Despite  of  all  England's  bended  knee 
And  maugre  the  Norman  fealty  ! 

He  was  a  Prince  of  lust  and  pride ; 

He  showed  no  grace  till  the  hour  he  died. 

55 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

When  he  should  be  King,  he  oft  would  vow, 
He'd  yoke  the  peasant  to  his  own  plough. 
O'er  him  the  ships  score  their  furrows  now. 

God  only  knows  where  his  soul  did  wake. 
But  I  saw  him  die  for  his  sister's  sake. 

By  none  but  me  can  the  tale  be  told, 
The  butcher  of  Rouen,  poor  Berold. 

{^Lands  are  swayed  by  a  King  on  a  throne,^ 
'Twas  a  royal  train  put  forth  to  sea. 
Yet  the  tale  can  be  told  by  none  but  me. 

(  The  sea  hath  no  King  but  God  alone.  ^ 

And  now  the  end  came  o'er  the  waters'  womb 
Like  the  last  great  Day  that's  yet  to  come. 

With  prayers  in  vain  and  curses  in  vain. 
The  White  Ship  sundered  on  the  mid-main : 

And  what  were  men  and  what  was  a  ship  \ 

Were  toys  and  splinters  in  the  sea's  grip. 

I  Berold  was  down  in  the  sea ; 

And  passing  strange  though  the  thing  may  be. 

Of  dreams  then  known  I  remember  me. 

Blithe  is  the  shout  on  Harfleur's  strand 
When  morning  lights  the  sails  to  land : 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

And  blithe  is  Honfleur's  echoing  gloam  tnH 

When  mothers  call  the  children  home  : 

And  high  do  the  bells  of  Rouen  beat 

When  the  Body  of  Christ  goes  down  the  street. 

These  things  and  the  like  were  heard  and  shown 
In  a  moment's  trance  'neath  the  sea  alone  ; 

And  when  I  rose,  'twas  the  sea  did  seem, 
And  not  these  things,  to  be  all  a  dream. 

The  ship  was  gone  and  the  crowd  was  gone, 
And  the  deep  shuddered  and  the  moon  shone : 

And  in  a  strait  grasp  my  arms  did  span 

The  mainyard  rent  from  the  mast  where  it  ran ; 

And  on  it  with  me  was  another  man. 

Where  lands  were  none  'neath  the  dim  sea-sky, 
We  told  our  names,  that  man  and  I. 

*<0  I  am  Godefroy  de  I'Aigle  hight. 
And  son  I  am  to  a  belted  knight." 

<*  And  I  am  Berold  the  butcher's  son 
Who  slays  the  beasts  in  Rouen  town." 

Then  cried  we  upon  God's  name,  as  we 
Did  drift  on  the  bitter  winter  sea. 

57 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

But  lo  !  a  third  man  rose  o*er  the  wave, 

And  we  said,  '*  Thank  God  !  us  three  may  He  save  I 

He  clutched  to  the  yard  with  panting  stare. 
And  we  looked  and  knew  Fitz-Stephen  there. 

He  clung,  and  *'What  of  the  Prince?"  quoth  he. 
"  Lost,  lost!"  we  cried.     He  cried,   '*Woe  on  me  !" 
And  loosed  his  hold  and  sank  through  the  sea. 

And  soul  with  soul  again  in  that  space 
We  two  were  together  face  to  face : 

And  each  knew  each,  as  the  moments  sped, 
Less  for  one  living  than  for  one  dead : 

And  every  still  star  overhead 

Seemed  an  eye  that  knew  we  were  but  dead. 

And  the  hours  passed ;  till  the  noble's  son 

Sighed,  '*God  be  thy  help  I  my  strength's  foredone  I 

<*  O  farewell,  friend,  for  I  can  no  more  !" 

'*  Christ  take  thee  I "  I  moaned ;  and  his  life  was  o'er. 

Three  hundred  souls  were  all  lost  but  one, 
And  I  drifted  over  the  sea  alone. 

S8 


I 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

At  last  the  morning  rose  on  the  sea 

Like  an  angel's  wing  that  beat  tow'rds  me. 

Sore  numbed  I  was  in  my  sheepskin  coat ; 
Half  dead  I  hung,  and  might  nothing  note, 
Till  I  woke  sun-warmed  in  a  fisher-boat. 

The  sun  was|high  o'er  the  eastern  brim 
As  I  praised  God  and  gave  thanks  to  Him. 

That  day  I  told  my  tale  to  a  priest, 

Who  charged  me,  till  the  shrift  were  released. 

That  I  should  keep  it  in  mine  own  breast. 

And  with  the  priest  I  thence  did  fare 
To  King  Henry's  court  at  Winchester. 

We  spoke  with  the  King's  high  chamberlain, 
And  he  wept  and  mourned  again  and  again, 
As  if  his  own  son  had  been  slain : 

And  round  us  ever  there  crowded  fast 
Great  men  with  faces  all  aghast : 

And  who  so  bold  that  might  tell  the  thing 
Which  now  they  knew  to  their  lord  the  King  ? 
Much  woe  I  learnt  in  their  communing. 

59 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

The  King  had  watched  with  a  heart  sore  stirred 
For  two  whole  days,  and  this  was  the  third : 

And  still  to  all  his  court  would  he  say, 
*'  What  keeps  my  son  so  long  away?" 

And  they  said :   **  The  ports  lie  far  and  wide 
That  skirt  the  swell  of  the  English  tide ; 

**  And  England's  cliffs  are  not  more  white 
Than  her  women  are,  and  scarce  so  light 
Her  skies  as  their  eyes  are  blue  and  bright ; 

**  And  in  some  port  that  he  reached  from  France 
The  Prince  has  lingered  for  his  pleasaunce." 

But  once  the  King  asked  :  **  What  distant  cry 
Was  that  we  heard  'twixt  the  sea  and  sky  ?  " 

And  one  said  :   '*  With  suchlike  shouts,  pardie  ! 
Do  the  fishers  fling  their  nets  at  sea." 

And  one  :  *'  Who  knows  not  the  shrieking  quest 
When  the  sea-mew  misses  its  young  from  the  nest?" 

'Twas  thus  till  now  they  had  soothed  his  dread, 
Albeit  they  knew  not  what  they  said  : 

60 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

But  who  should  speak  to-day  of  the  thing 
That  all  knew  there  except  the  King? 

Then  pondering  much  they  found  a  way, 
And  met  round  the  King's  high  seat  that  day : 

And  the  King  sat  with  a  heart  sore  stirred, 
And  seldom  he  spoke  and  seldom  heard. 

'Twas  then  through  the  hall  the  King  was  'ware 
Of  a  little  boy  with  golden  hair. 

As  bright  as  the  golden  poppy  is 

That  the  beach  breeds  for  the  surf  to  kiss : 

Yet  pale  his  cheek  as  the  thorn  in  Spring, 
And  his  garb  black  like  the  raven's  wing. 

Nothing  heard  but  his  foot  through  the  hall. 
For  now  the  lords  were  silent  all. 

And  the  King  wondered,  and  said,  **  Alack  ! 
Who  sends  me  a  fair  boy  dressed  in  black? 

**  Why,  sweet  heart,  do  you  pace  through  the  hall 
As  though  my  court  were  a  funeral?" 

Then  lowly  knelt  the  child  at  the  dais. 
And  looked  up  weeping  in  the  King's  face. 

6i 


THE    WHITE    SHIP 

**  O  wherefore  black,  O  King,  ye  may  say. 
For  white  is  the  hue  of  death  to-day. 

**  Your  son  and  all  his  fellowship 

Lie  low  in  the  sea  with  the  White  Ship." 

King  Henry  fell  as  a  man  struck  dead ; 
And  speechless  still  he  stared  from  his  bed 
When  to  him  next  day  my  rede  I  read. 

There's  many  an  hour  must  needs  beguile 
A  King's  high  heart  that  he  should  smile, — 

Full  many  a  lordly  hour,  full  fain 

Of  his  realm's  rule  and  pride  of  his  reign  : — 

But  this  King  never  smiled  again. 

By  none  but  me  can  the  tale  be  told. 
The  butcher  of  Rouen,  poor  Berold. 

{Lands  are  swayed  by  a  King  on  a  throne.^ 
'Twas  a  royal  train  put  forth  to  sea. 
Yet  the  tale  can  be  told  by  none  but  me. 

(  The  sea  hath  no  King  but  God  alone,  ^ 


THE  KING'S  TRAGEDY 


I 


NOTE 

Tradition  says  that  Catherine  Douglas,  in  honour  of  her 
heroic  act  when  she  barred  the  door  with  her  arm  against 
the  murderers  of  James  the  First  of  Scots,  received  popularly 
the  name  of  "  Barlass."  This  name  remains  to  her  descendants, 
the  Barlas  family,  in  Scotland,  who  bear  for  their  crest  a  broken 
arm.     She  married  Alexander  Lovell  of  Bolunnie. 

A  few  stanzas  from  King  James's  lovely  poem,  known  as 
The  King's  Quhair,  are  quoted  in  the  course  of  this  ballad. 
The  writer  must  express  regret  for  the  necessity  which  has 
compelled  him  to  shorten  the  ten-syllabled  lines  to  eight 
syllables,  in  order  that  they  might  harmonize  with  the  ballad 
metre. 


THE  KING'S  TRAGEDY 
James  I.  of  Scots — 2oth  February,  1437 


T   CATHERINE  am  a  Douglas  born, 
1     A  name  to  all  Scots  dear ; 
And  Kate  Barlass  they've  called  me  now 
Through  many  a  waning  year. 

This  old  arm's  withered  now.     'Twas  once 

Most  deft  'mong  maidens  all 
To  rein  the  steed,  to  wing  the  shaft, 

To  smite  the  palm-play  ball. 

In  hall  adown  the  close-linked  dance 

It  has  shone  most  white  and  fair ; 
It  has  been  the  rest  for  a  true  lord's  head. 
And  many  a  sweet  babe's  nursing-bed, 
And  the  bar  to  a  King's  chambere. 

Aye,  lasses,  draw  round  Kate  Barlass, 

And  hark  with  bated  breath 
How  good  King  James,  King  Robert's  son, 

Was  foully  done  to  death. 

6s 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Through  all  the  days  of  his  gallant  youth 

The  princely  James  was  pent, 
By  his  friends  at  first  and  then  by  his  foes, 

In  long  imprisonment. 

For  the  elder  Prince,  the  kingdom's  heir. 

By  treason's  murderous  brood 
Was  slain ;  and  the  father  quaked  for  the  child 

With  the  royal  mortal  blood. 

I'  the  Bass  Rock  fort,  by  his  father's  care, 

Was  his  childhood's  life  assured ; 
And  Henry  the  subtle  Bolingbroke, 
Proud  England's  King,  'neath  the  southron  yoke 

His  youth  for  long  years  immured. 

Yet  in  all  things  meet  for  a  kingly  man 

Himself  did  he  approve  ; 
And  the  nightingale  through  his  prison-wall 

Taught  him  both  lore  and  love. 

For  once,  when  the  bird's  song  drew  him  close 

To  the  opened  window-pane, 
In  her  bowers  beneath  a  lady  stood, 
A  light  of  life  to  his  sorrowful  mood. 

Like  a  lily  amid  the  rain. 

And  for  her  sake,  to  the  sweet  bird's  note, 
He  framed  a  sweeter  Song, 

66 


% 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

More  sweet  than  ever  a  poet's  heart 
Gave  yet  to  the  English  tongue. 

She  was  a  lady  of  royal  blood ; 

And  when,  past  sorrow  and  teen, 
He  stood  where  still  through  his  crownless  years 

His  Scotish  realm  had  been, 
At  Scone  were  the  happy  lovers  crowned, 

A  heart-wed  King  and  Queen. 

But  the  bird  may  fall  from  the  bough  of  youth, 

And  song  be  turned  to  moan, 
And  Love's  storm-cloud  be  the  shadow  of  Hate, 
When  the  tempest-waves  of  a  troubled  State 

Are  beating  against  a  throne. 

Yet  well  they  loved ;  and  the  god  of  Love, 

Whom  well  the  King  had  sung. 
Might  find  on  the  earth  no  truer  hearts 

His  lowliest  swains  among. 

From  the  days  when  first  she  rode  abroad 

With  Scotish  maids  in  her  train, 
I  Catherine  Douglas  won  the  trust 

Of  my  mistress  sweet  Queen  Jane. 

And  oft  she  sighed,  "To  be  born  a  King  !" 
And  oft  along  the  way 

67 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

When  she  saw  the  homely  lovers  pass 
She  has  said,  '*  Alack  the  day  !" 

Years  waned,  —  the  loving  and  toiling  years  : 

Till  England's  wrong  renewed 
Drove  James,  by  outrage  cast  on  his  crown, 

To  the  open  field  of  feud. 

'Twas  when  the  King  and  his  host  were  met 

At  the  leaguer  of  Roxbro'  hold. 
The  Queen  o'  the  sudden  sought  his  camp 

With  a  tale  of  dread  to  be  told. 

And  she  showed  him  a  secret  letter  writ 

That  spoke  of  treasonous  strife, 
And  how  a  band  of  his  noblest  lords 

Were  sworn  to  take  his  life. 

''  And  it  may  be  here  or  it  may  be  there. 
In  the  camp  or  the  court,"  she  said : 

*«  But  for  my  sake  come  to  your  people's  arms 
And  guard  your  royal  head." 

Quoth  he,  **  'Tis  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  siege, 

And  the  castle's  nigh  to  yield." 
**0  face  your  foes  on  your  throne,"  she  cried, 

**  And  show  the  power  you  wield  ; 
And  under  your  Scotish  people's  love 

You  shall  sit  as  under  your  shield." 

68 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

At  the  fair  Queen's  side  I  stood  that  day 
When  he  bade  them  raise  the  siege, 

And  back  to  his  Court  he  sped  to  know 
How  the  lords  would  meet  their  Liege. 

But  when  he  summoned  his  Parliament, 

The  louring  brows  hung  round. 
Like  clouds  that  circle  the  mountain-head 

Ere  the  first  low  thunders  sound. 

For  he  had  tamed  the  nobles'  lust 
And  curbed  their  power  and  pride. 

And  reached  out  an  arm  to  right  the  poor 
Through  Scotland  far  and  wide ; 

And  many  a  lordly  wrong-doer 
By  the  headsman's  axe  had  died. 

'Twas  then  upspoke  Sir  Robert  Graeme, 
The  bold  o'ermastering  man  :  — 

**  O  King,  in  the  name  of  your  Three  Estates 
I  set  you  under  their  ban  I 

<  *  For,  as  your  lords  made  oath  to  you 

Of  service  and  fealty, 
Even  in  like  wise  you  pledged  your  oath 

Their  faithful  sire  to  be  :  — 

*  *  Yet  all  we  here  that  are  nobly  sprung 
Have  mourned  dear  kith  and  kin 

69 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Since  first  for  the  Scotish  Barons'  curse 
Did  your  bloody  rule  begin." 

With  that  he  laid  his  hands  on  his  King :  — 

**  Is  this  not  so,  my  lords?" 
But  of  all  who  had  sworn  to  league  with  him 

Not  one  spake  back  to  his  words. 

Quoth  the  King  :  —  * '  Thou  speak'st  but  for  one  Estate, 

Nor  doth  it  avow  thy  gage. 
Let  my  liege  lords  hale  this  traitor  hence  ! " 

The  Graeme  fired  dark  with  rage  :  — 
**  Who  works  for  lesser  men  than  himself, 

He  earns  but  a  witless  wage  I " 

But  soon  from  the  dungeon  where  he  lay 

He  won  by  privy  plots, 
And  forth  he  fled  with  a  price  on  his  head 

To  the  country  of  the  Wild  Scots. 

Anfl  word  there  came  from  Sir  Robert  Graeme 

To  the  King  at  Edinbro' :  — 
**  No  Liege  of  mine  thou  art ;  but  I  see 
From  this  day  forth  alone  in  thee 

God's  creature,  my  mortal  foe. 

"  Through  thee  are  my  wife  and  children  lost, 
My  heritage  and  lands ; 

70 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  when  my  God  shall  show  me  a  way, 
Thyself  my  mortal  foe  will  I  slay 
With  these  my  proper  hands." 

Against  the  coming  of  Christmastide 

That  year  the  King  bade  call 
I'  the  Black  Friars'  Charterhouse  of  Perth 

A  solemn  festival. 

And  we  of  his  household  rode  with  him 

In  a  close-ranked  company ; 
But  not  till  the  sun  had  sunk  from  his  throne 

Did  we  reach  the  Scotish  Sea. 

That  eve  was  clenched  for  a  boding  storm, 
'Neath  a  toilsome  moon  half  seen ; 

The  cloud  stooped  low  and  the  surf  rose  high  ; 

And  where  there  was  a  line  of  the  sky, 
Wild  wings  loomed  dark  between. 

And  on  a  rock  of  the  black  beach-side, 

By  the  veiled  moon  dimly  lit. 
There  was  something  seemed  to  heave  with  life 

As  the  King  drew  nigh  to  it. 

And  was  it  only  the  tossing  furze 
Or  brake  of  the  waste  sea-wold? 

71 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Or  was  it  an  eagle  bent  to  the  blast? 
When  near  we  came,  we  knew  it  at  last 
For  a  woman  tattered  and  old. 

But  it  seemed  as  though  by  a  fire  within 

Her  writhen  limbs  were  wrung ; 
And  as  soon  as  the  King  was  close  to  her, 

She  stood  up  gaunt  and  strong. 

'Twas  then  the  moon  sailed  clear  of  the  rack 

On  high  in  her  hollow  dome  ; 
And  still  as  aloft  with  hoary  crest  j 

Each  clamorous  wave  rang  home, 
Like  fire  in  snow  the  moonlight  blazed 

Amid  the  champing  foam. 

And  the  woman  held  his  eyes  with  her  eyes :  — 

**  O  King,  thou  art  come  at  last ; 
But  thy  wraith  has  haunted  the  Scotish  Sea 

To  my  sight  for  four  years  past. 

'*  Four  years  it  is  since  first  I  met,  I 

'Twixt  the  Duchray  and  the  Dhu,  j 

A  shape  whose  feet  clung  close  in  a  shroud,  ; 

And  that  shape  for  thine  I  knew.  I 

**  A  year  again,  and  on  Inchkeith  Isle 

I  saw  thee  pass  in  the  breeze,  ^ 

72  I 

I 

I 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

With  the  cerecloth  risen  above  thy  feet 
And  wound  about  thy  knees. 

**  And  yet  a  year,  in  the  Links  of  Forth, 

As  a  wanderer  without  rest, 
Thou  cam'st  with  both  thine  arms  i'  the  shroud 

That  clung  high  up  thy  breast. 

<  *  And  in  this  hour  I  find  thee  here, 

And  well  mine  eyes  may  note 
That  the  winding-sheet  hath  passed  thy  breast 

And  risen  around  thy  throat. 

*<  And  when  I  meet  thee  again,  O  King, 

That  of  death  hast  such  sore  drouth ,  — 
Except  thou  turn  again  on  this  shore,  — 
The  winding-sheet  shall  have  moved  once  more 
And  covered  thine  eyes  and  mouth. 

'*  O  King,  whom  poor  men  bless  for  their  King, 

Of  thy  fate  be  not  so  fain  ; 
But  these  my  words  for  God's  message  take. 
And  turn  thy  steed,  O  King,  for  her  sake 

Who  rides  beside  thy  rein  ! " 

While  the  woman  spoke,  the  King's  horse  reared 

As  if  it  would  breast  the  sea, 
And  the  Queen  turned  pale  as  she  heard  on  the  gale 

The  voice  die  dolorously. 

73 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

When  the  woman  ceased,  the  steed  was  still, 

But  the  King  gazed  on  her  yet, 
And  in  silence  save  for  the  wail  of  the  sea 

His  eyes  and  her  eyes  met. 

At  last  he  said :  —  "  God's  ways  are  His  own ; 

Man  is  but  shadow  and  dust. 
Last  night  I  prayed  by  His  altar-stone ; 
To-night  I  wend  to  the  Feast  of  His  Son ; 

And  in  Him  I  set  my  trust. 

**  I  have  held  my  people  in  sacred  charge, 

And  have  not  feared  the  sting 
Of  proud  men's  hate,  —  to  His  will  resign'd 
Who  has  but  one  same  death  for  a  hind 

And  one  same  death  for  a  King. 

'*  And  if  God  in  His  wisdom  have  brought  close 

The  day  when  I  must  die, 
That  day  by  water  or  fire  or  air 
My  feet  shall  fall  in  the  destined  snare 

Wherever  my  road  may  lie. 

**  What  man  can  say  but  the  Fiend  hath  set 

Thy  sorcery  on  my  path, 
My  heart  with  the  fear  of  death  to  fill, 
And  turn  me  against  God's  very  will 

To  sink  in  His  burning  wrath  ?  " 

74 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

The  woman  stood  as  the  train  rode  past, 

And  moved  nor  limb  nor  eye ; 
And  when  we  were  shipped,  we  saw  her  there 

Still  standing  against  the  sky. 

As  the  ship  made  way,  the  moon  once  more 

Sank  slow  in  her  rising  pall ; 
And  I  thought  of  the  shrouded  wraith  of  the  King, 

And  I  said,   "  The  Heavens  know  all." 

And  now,  ye  lasses,  must  ye  hear 

How  my  name  is  Kate  Badass  :  — 
But  a  little  thing,  when  all  the  tale 

Is  told  of  the  weary  mass 
Of  crime  and  woe  which  in  Scotland's  realm 

God's  will  let  come  to  pass. 

'Twas  in  the  Charterhouse  of  Perth 

That  the  King  and  all  his  Court 
Were  met,  the  Christmas  Feast  being  done. 

For  solace  and  disport. 

'Twas  a  wind- wild  eve  in  February, 

And  against  the  casement-pane 
The  branches  smote  like  summoning  hands 

And  muttered  the  driving  rain. 

And  when  the  wind  swooped  over  the  lift 
And  made  the  whole  heaven  frown, 

75 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

It  seemed  a  grip  was  laid  on  the  walls 
To  tug  the  housetop  down. 

And  the  Queen  was  there,  more  stately  fair 

Than  a  lily  in  garden  set ; 
And  the  King  was  loth  to  stir  from  her  side ; 
For  as  on  the  day  when  she  was  his  bride, 

Even  so  he  loved  her  yet. 

And  the  Earl  of  Athole,  the  King's  false  friend, 

Sat  with  him  at  the  board ; 
And  Robert  Stuart  the  chamberlain 

Who  had  sold  his  sovereign  Lord. 

Yet  the  traitor  Christopher  Chaumber  there 

Would  fain  have  told  him  all, 
And  vainly  four  times  that  night  he  strove 

To  reach  the  King  through  the  hall. 

But  the  wine  is  bright  at  the  goblet's  brim 

Though  the  poison  lurk  beneath  ; 
And  the  apples  still  are  red  on  the  tree 
Within  whose  shade  may  the  adder  be 

That  shall  turn  thy  life  to  death. 

There  was  a  knight  of  the  King's  fast  friends 
Whom  he  called  the  King  of  Love  ; 

And  to  such  bright  cheer  and  courtesy 
That  name  might  best  behove. 

76 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  the  King  and  Queen  both  loved  him  well 

For  his  gentle  knightliness ; 
And  with  him  the  King,  as  that  eve  wore  on, 

Was  playing  at  the  chess. 

And  the  King  said,  (for  he  thought  to  jest 
And  soothe  the  Queen  thereby ;)  — 

*'  In  a  book  'tis  writ  that  this  same  year 
A  King  shall  in  Scotland  die. 

**  And  I  have  pondered  the  matter  o'er, 
And  this  have  I  found.  Sir  Hugh,  — 

There  are  but  two  Kings  on  Scotish  ground. 
And  those  Kings  are  I  and  you. 

**  And  I  have  a  wife  and  a  newborn  heir, 

And  you  are  yourself  alone  ; 
So  stand  you  stark  at  my  side  with  me 

To  guard  our  double  throne. 

*'For  here  sit  I  and  my  wife  and  child, 

As  well  your  heart  shall  approve, 
In  full  surrender  and  soothfastness, 

Beneath  your  Kingdom  of  Love." 

And  the  Knight  laughed,  and  the  Queen  too  smiled  ; 

But  I  knew  her  heavy  thought. 
And  I  strove  to  find  in  the  good  King's  jest 

What  cheer  might  thence  be  wrought. 

77 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  I  said,  **  My  Liege,  for  the  Queen's  dear  love 

Now  sing  the  song  that  of  old 
You  made,  when  a  captive  Prince  you  lay. 
And  the  nightingale  sang  sweet  on  the  spray, 

In  Windsor's  castle-hold." 

Then  he  smiled  the  smile  I  knew  so  well 
When  he  thought  to  please  the  Queen ; 

The  smile  which  under  all  bitter  frowns 
Of  fate  that  rose  between, 

For  ever  dwelt  at  the  poet's  heart 
Like  the  bird  of  love  unseen. 

And  he  kissed  her  hand  and  took  his  harp, 

And  the  music  sweetly  rang  ; 
And  when  the  song  burst  forth,  it  seemed 

'Twas  the  nightingale  that  sang. 

n  Worship ^  ye  lovers^  on  this  May  : 

Of  bliss  your  kalends  are  begun: 
Sing  with  us^  Away,   Winter ,  away  I 

Come,  Summer,  the  sweet  season  and  sun  ! 

Awake  for  shame,  — your  heaven  is  won,  — 
And  amorously  your  heads  lift  all: 
Thank  Love,  that  you  to  his  grace  doth  callT^ 

But  when  he  bent  to  the  Queen,  and  sang 

The  speech  whose  praise  was  hers. 
It  seemed  his  voice  was  the  voice  of  the  Spring 

And  the  voice  of  the  bygone  years. 

78 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

*'  The  fairest  and  the  freshest  jlo-wer 
That  ever  I  saw  before  that  hour. 
The  which  o^  the  sudden  made  to  start 
The  blood  of  my  body  to  my  heart. 

***** 

Ah  sweet,  are  ye  a  worldly  creature 
Or  heavenly  thing  inform  of  nature  .^" 

And  the  song  was  long,  and  richly  stored* 
With  wonder  and  beauteous  things  ;• 

And  the  harp  was  tuned  to  every  change* 
Of  minstrel  ministerings  ;• 

But  when  he  spoke  of  the  Queen  at  the  last; 
Its  strings  were  his  own  heart-strings: 

'*  Unworthy  but  only  of  her  grace. 

Upon  Love*s  rock  thafs  easy  and  sure. 

In  guerdon  of  all  'my  lovers  space 
She  took  me  her  humble  creature. 
Thus  fell  my  blissful  aventure 

In  youth  of  love  that  from  day  to  day 

Flower  eth  aye  new,  and  further  I  say, 

**  To  reckon  all  the  circumstance 

As  it  happed  when  lessen  gan  my  sore. 

Of  my  rancour  andwoful  chance. 
It  were  too  long,  —  /  have  done  therefor. 
And  of  this  flower  I  say  no  more 

But  unto  my  help  her  heart  hath  tended 

And  even  from  death  her  man  def ended, ^^ 

79 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

**  Aye,  even  from  death,"  to  myself  I  said; 

For  I  thought  of  the  day  when  she 
Had  borne  him  the  news,  at  Roxbro'  siege, 

Of  the  fell  confederacy. 

But  Death  even  then  took  aim  as  he  sang 

With  an  arrow  deadly  bright ; 
And  the  grinning  skull  lurked  grimly  aloof, 
And  the  wings  were  spread  far  over  the  roof 

More  dark  than  the  winter  night. 

Yet  truly  along  the  amorous  song 

Of  Love's  high  pomp  and  state, 
There  were  words  of  Fortune's  trackless  doom 

And  the  dreadful  face  of  Fate. 

V 

And  oft  have  I  heard  again  in  dreams  I 

The  voice  of  dire  appeal  ; 

In  which  the  King  then  sang  of  the  pit 
That  is  under  Fortune's  wheel. 


**  And  under  the  wheel  beheld  I  there  ; 

An  ugly  Pit  as  deep  as  hell,  % 

That  to  behold  I  quaked  for  fear :  i 

And  this  I  heard,  that  who  therein  fell  | 

Came  no  more  up,  tidings  to  tell:  | 

Whereat,  astound  of  the  fearful  sight,  I 

/  wist  not  what  to  do  for  fright, ^^  I 

% 

80  l 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  oft  has  my  thought  called  up  again 

These  words  of  the  changeful  song  :  — 
**  Wz'st  thou  thy  fain  and  thy  travail 
To  come,  well  tnighfst  thou  weep  and  wail  I  ^^ 
And  our  wail,  O  God  !  is  long. 

But  the  song's  end  was  all  of  his  love ; 

And  well  his  heart  was  grac'd 
With  her  smiling  lips  and  her  tear-bright  eyes 

As  his  arm  went  round  her  waist. 

And  on  the  swell  of  her  long  fair  throat 

Close  clung  the  necklet-chain 
As  he  bent  her  pearl-tir'd  head  aside, 
And  in  the  warmth  of  his  love  and  pride 

He  kissed  her  lips  full  fain. 

And  her  true  face  was  a  rosy  red, 

The  very  red  of  the  rose 
That,  couched  on  the  happy  garden-bed, 

In  the  summer  sunlight  glows. 

And  all  the  wondrous  things  of  love 
That  sang  so  sweet  through  the  song 

Were  in  the  look  that  met  in  their  eyes, 
And  the  look  was  deep  and  long. 

'Twas  then  a  knock  came  at  the  outer  gate. 
And  the  usher  sought  the  King. 

8i 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

*'The  woman  you  met  by  the  Scotish  Sea, 
My  Liege,  would  tell  you  a  thing ; 

And  she  says  that  her  present  need  for  speech 
Will  bear  no  gainsaying." 

And  the  King  said  :  '*  The  hour  is  late  ; 

To-morrow  will  serve,  I  ween."  ■   '" 

Then  he  charged  the  usher  strictly,  and  said : 

"  No  word  of  this  to  the  Queen." 

But  the  usher  came  again  to  the  King. 

**Shall  I  call  her  back?  "  quoth  he  : 
**  For  as  she  went  on  her  way,  she  cried, 

« Woe  !  Woe  !  then  the  thing  must  be  !'" 

And  the  King  paused,  but  he  did  not  speak. 

Then  he  called  for  the  Voidee-cup : 
And  as  we  heard  the  twelfth  hour  strike, 
There  by  true  lips  and  false  lips  alike 

Was  the  draught  of  trust  drained  up. 

So  with  reverence  meet  to  King  and  Queen, 

To  bed  went  all  from  the  board ; 
And  the  last  to  leave  of  the  courtly  train 
Was  Robert  Stuart  the  chamberlain 
Who  had  sold  his  sovereign  lord. 

And  all  the  locks  of  the  chamber-door 
Had  the  traitor  riven  and  brast ; 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  that  Fate  might  win  sure  way  from  afar, 
He  had  drawn  out  every  bolt  and  bar 
That  made  the  entrance  fast. 

And  now  at  midnight  he  stole  his  way 

To  the  moat  of  the  outer  wall, 
And  laid  strong  hurdles  closely  across 

Where  the  traitors'  tread  should  fall. 

But  we  that  were  the  Queen's  bower-maids 

Alone  were  left  behind  ; 
And  with  heed  we  drew  the  curtains  close 

Against  the  winter  wind. 

And  now  that  all  was  still  through  the  hall, 

More  clearly  we  heard  the  rain 
That  clamoured  ever  against  the  glass 

And  the  boughs  that  beat  on  the  pane. 

But  the  fire  was  bright  in  the  ingle-nook, 

And  through  empty  space  around 
The  shadows  cast  on  the  arras'd  wall 
'Mid  the  pictured  kings  stood  sudden  and  tall 
Like  spectres  sprung  from  the  ground. 

And  the  bed  was  dight  in  a  deep  alcove ; 
And  as  he  stood  by  the  fire  ': 

The  King  was  still  in  talk  with  the  Queen- 
While  he  doffed  his  goodly  attire: 

83 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  the  song  had  brought  the  image  back 

Of  many  a  bygone  year ;    ' 
And  many  a  loving  word  they  said 
With  hand  in  hand  and  head  laid  to  head ; 

And  none  of  us  went  anear. 

But  Love  was  weeping  outside  the  house, 

A  child  in  the  piteous  rain ; 
And  as  he  watched  the  arrow  of  Death, 
He  wailed  for  his  own  shafts  close  in  the  sheath 

That  never  should  fly  again. 

And  now  beneath  the  window  arose 

A  wild  voice  suddenly  : 
And  the  King  reared  straight,  but  the  Queen  fell  back 

As  for  bitter  dule  to  dree ; 
And  all  of  us  knew  the  woman's  voice 

Who  spoke  by  the  Scotish  Sea. 

**  O  King,"  she  cried,  *'in  an  evil  hour 

They  drove  me  from  thy  gate ; 
And  yet  my  voice  must  rise  to  thine  ears ; 

But  alas  !  it  comes  too  late  I 

**  Last  night  at  mid-watch,  by  Aberdour, 
When  the  moon  was  dead  in  the  skies, 

O  King,  in  a  death-light  of  thine  own 
I  saw  thy  shape  arise. 

84 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

**  And  in  full  season,  as  erst  I  said, 
The  doom  had  gained  its  growth ; 

And  the  shroud  had  risen  above  thy  neck 
And  covered  thine  eyes  and  mouth. 

**  And  no  moon  woke,  but  the  pale  dawn  broke, 

And  still  thy  soul  stood  there ; 
And  I  thought  its  silence  cried  to  my  soul 

As  the  first  rays  crowned  its  hair. 

**  Since  then  have  I  journeyed  fast  and  fain 

In  very  despite  of  Fate, 
Lest  Hope  might  still  be  found  in  God's  will : 

But  they  drove  me  from  thy  gate. 

"  For  every  man  on  God's  ground,  O  King, 
His  death  grows  up  from  his  birth 

In  a  shadow-plant  perpetually ; 

And  thine  towers  high,  a  black  yew-tree, 
O'er  the  Charterhouse  of  Perth  !  " 

That  room  was  built  far  out  from  the  house  ; 

And  none  but  we  in  the  room 
Might  hear  the  voice  that  rose  beneath. 

Nor  the  tread  of  the  coming  doom. 

For  now  there  came  a  torchlight-glare. 

And  a  clang  of  arms  there  came ; 
And  not  a  soul  in  that  space  but  thought 

Of  the  foe  Sir  Robert  Graeme. 

8s 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Yea,  from  the  country  of  the  Wild  Scots, 

O'er  mountain,  valley,  and  glen. 
He  had  brought  with  him  in  murderous  league 

Three  hundred  armed  men. 

The  King  knew  all  in  an  instant's  flash ; 

And  like  a  King  did  he  stand ; 
But  there  was  no  armour  in  all  the  room, 

.  Nor  weapon  lay  to  his  hand. 

And  all  we  women  flew  to  the  door 
And  thought  to  have  made  it  fast ; 

But  the  bolts  were  gone  and  the  bars  were  gone 
And  the  locks  were  riven  and  brast. 

And  he  caught  the  pale  pale  Queen  in  his  arms 

As  the  iron  footsteps  fell, — 
Then  loosed  her,  standing  alone,  and  said, 

**  Our  bliss  was  our  farewell ! " 

And  'twixt  his  lips  he  murmured  a  prayer, 

And  he  crossed  his  brow  and  breast ; 
And  proudly  in  royal  hardihood 
Even  so  with  folded  arms  he  stood, — 
The  prize  of  the  bloody  quest. 

Then  on  me  leaped  the  Queen  like  a  deer :  — 

**  O  Catherine,  help  I  "  she  cried. 
And  low  at  his  feet  we  clasped  his  knees 

Together  side  by  side. 

86 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

**  Oh !  even  a  King,  for  his  people's  sake, 
From  treasonous  death  must  hide  !  " 

"  For  her  sake  most !  "  I  cried,  and  I  marked 
The  pang  that  my  words  could  wring. 

And  the  iron  tongs  from  the  chimney-nook 
I  snatched  and  held  to  the  King :  — 

*'  Wrench  up  the  plank  !  and  the  vault  beneath 
Shall  yield  safe  harbouring." 

With  brows  low-bent,  from  my  eager  hand 

The  heavy  heft  did  he  take ; 
And  the  plank  at  his  feet  he  wrenched  and  tore ; 
And  as  he  frowned  through  the  open  floor. 

Again  I  said,  **  For  her  sake  ! " 

Then  he  cried  to  the  Qiieen,  **  God's  will  be  done  ! " 
For  her  hands  were  clasped  in  prayer. 

And  down  he  sprang  to  the  inner  crypt ; 

And  straight  we  closed  the  plank  he  had  ripp'd 
And  toiled  to  smoothe  it  fair. 

(Alas  I  in  that  vault  a  gap  once  was 

Wherethro'  the  King  might  have  fled : 
But  three  days  since  close-walled  had  it  been 
By  his  will ;   for  the  ball  would  roll  therein 
When  without  at  the  palm  he  play'd.) 

87 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Then  the  Queen  cried,  '*  Catherine,  keep  the  door, 

And  I  to  this  will  suffice  ! " 
At  her  word  I  rose  all  dazed  to  my  feet, 

And  my  heart  was  fire  and  ice. 

And  louder  ever  the  voices  grew. 

And  the  tramp  of  men  in  mail ; 
Until  to  my  brain  it  seemed  to  be 
As  though  I  tossed  on  a  ship  at  sea 

In  the  teeth  of  a  crashing  gale. 

Then  back  I  flew  to  the  rest ;  and  hard 

We  strove  with  sinews  knit 
To  force  the  table  against  the  door ; 

But  we  might  not  compass  it. 

Then  my  wild  gaze  sped  far  down  the  hall 

To  the  place  of  the  hearthstone-sill ; 
And  the  Queen  bent  ever  above  the  floor, 

For  the  plank  was  rising  still. 

And  now  the  rush  was  heard  on  the  stair, 
And  **  God,  what  help?"  was  our  cry. 

And  was  I  frenzied  or  was  I  bold? 

I  looked  at  each  empty  stanchion-hold. 
And  no  bar  but  my  arm  had  I ! 

Like  iron  felt  my  arm,  as  through 
The  staple  I  made  it  pass  :  — 

88 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Alack  !  it  was  flesh  and  bone  —  no  more  ! 
'Twas  Catherine  Douglas  sprang  to  the  door, 
But  I  fell  back  Kate  Barlass. 

With  that  they  all  thronged  into  the  hall, 

Half  dim  to  my  failing  ken  ; 
And  the  space  that  was  but  a  void  before 

Was  a  crowd  of  wrathful  men . 

Behind  the  door  I  had  fall'n  and  lay, 

Yet  my  sense  was  wildly  aware, 
And  for  all  the  pain  of  my  shattered  arm 

I  never  fainted  there. 

Even  as  I  fell,  my  eyes  were  cast 

Where  the  King  leaped  down  to  the  pit ; 

And  lo  !  the  plank  was  smooth  in  its  place, 
And  the  Queen  stood  far  from  it. 

And  under  the  litters  and  through  the  bed 

And  within  the  presses  all 
The  traitors  sought  for  the  King,  and  pierced 

The  arras  around  the  wall. 

And  through  the  chamber  they  ramped  and  stormed 

Like  lions  loose  in  the  lair. 
And  scarce  could  trust  to  their  very  eyes, — 

For  behold  !  no  King  was  there. 

89 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Then  one  of  them  seized  the  Queen,  and  cried, 

**  Now  tell  us,  where  is  thy  lord?" 
And  he  held  the  sharp  point  over  her  heart : 
She  drooped  not  her  eyes  nor  did  she  start. 
But  she  answered  never  a  word. 


Then  the  sword  half  pierced  the  true  true  breast 

But  it  was  the  Graeme's  own  son 
Cried,  *'  This  is  a  woman,  —  we  seek  a  man  !  " 

And  away  from  her  girdle-zone 
He  struck  the  point  of  the  murderous  steel ; 

And  that  foul  deed  was  not  done. 


And  forth  flowed  all  the  throng  like  a  sea, 
And  'twas  empty  space  once  more ; 

And  my  eyes  sought  out  the  wounded  Queen 
As  I  lay  behind  the  door. 

And  I  said :   **  Dear  Lady,  leave  me  here, 

For  I  cannot  help  you  now ; 
But  fly  while  you  may,  and  none  shall  reck 

Of  my  place  here  lying  low." 

And  she  said,  **  My  Catherine,  God  help  thee ! 

Then  she  looked  to  the  distant  floor. 
And  clasping  her  hands,  "  O  God  help  ^?>«," 

She  sobbed,  *'  for  we  can  no  more  I  " 

90 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

But  God  He  knows  what  help  may  mean, 

If  it  mean  to  live  or  to  die ; 
And  what  sore  sorrow  and  mighty  moan 
On  earth  it  may  cost  ere  yet  a  throne 

Be  filled  in  His  house  on  high. 

And  now  the  ladies  fled  with  the  Queen ; 

And  thorough  the  open  door 
The  night-wind  wailed  round  the  empty  room 

And  the  rushes  shook  on  the  floor. 

And  the  bed  drooped  low  in  the  dark  recess 

Whence  the  arras  was  rent  away ; 
And  the  firelight  still  shone  over  the  space 

Where  our  hidden  secret  lay. 

And  the  rain  had  ceased,  and  the  moonbeams  lit 

The  window  high  in  the  wall,  — 
Bright  beams  that  on  the  plank  that  I  knew 

Through  the  painted  pane  did  fall 
And  gleamed  with  the  splendour  of  Scotland's  crown 

And  shield  armorial. 

But  then  a  great  wind  swept  up  the  skies, 

And  the  climbing  moon  fell  back ; 
And  the  royal  blazon  fled  from  the  floor, 

And  nought  remained  on  its  track ; 
And  high  in  the  darkened  window-pane 

The  shield  and  the  crown  were  black. 

91 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  what  I  say  next  I  partly  saw 

And  partly  I  heard  in  sooth, 
And  partly  since  from  the  murderers'  lips 

The  torture  wrung  the  truth. 

For  now  again  came  the  armed  tread, 

And  fast  through  the  hall  it  fell ; 
But  the  throng  was  less ;  and  ere  I  saw, 

By  the  voice  without  I  could  tell 
That  Robert  Stuart  had  come  with  them 

Who  knew  that  chamber  well. 

And  over  the  space  the  Graeme  strode  dark 

With  his  mantle  round  him  flung ; 
And  in  his  eye  was  a  flaming  light 

But  not  a  word  on  his  tongue. 

And  Stuart  held  a  torch  to  the  floor, 

And  he  found  the  thing  he  sought ; 
And  they  slashed  the  plank  away  with  their  swords ; 

And  O  God  I  I  fainted  not  I 

And  the  traitor  held  his  torch  in  the  gap. 

All  smoking  and  smouldering  ; 
And  through  the  vapour  and  fire,  beneath 

In  the  dark  crypt's  narrow  ring, 
With  a  shout  that  pealed  to  the  room's  high  roof 

They  saw  their  naked  King. 

92 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Half  naked  he  stood,  but  stood  as  one 

Who  yet  could  do  and  dare : 
With  the  crown,  the  King  was  stript  away,  — 
The  Knight  was  reft  of  his  battle-array, — 

But  still  the  Man  was  there. 

From  the  rout  then  stepped  a  villain  forth,  — 

Sir  John  Hall  was  his  name  ; 
With  a  knife  unsheathed  he  leapt  to  the  vault 

Beneath  the  torchlight-flame. 

Of  his  person  and  stature  was  the  King 

A  man  right  manly  strong, 
And  mightily  by  the  shoulder-blades 

His  foe  to  his  feet  he  flung. 

Then  the  traitor's  brother,  Sir  Thomas  Hall, 

Sprang  down  to  work  his  worst ; 
And  the  King  caught  the  second  man  by  the  neck 

And  flung  him  above  the  first. 

And  he  smote  and  trampled  them  under  him ; 

And  a  long  month  thence  they  bare 
All  black  their  throats  with  the  grip  of  his  hands 

When  the  hangman's  hand  came  there. 

And  sore  he  strove  to  have  had  their  knives, 
But  the  sharp  blades  gashed  his  hands. 

93 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Oh  James  !  so  armed,  thou  hadst  battled  there 

Till  help  had  come  of  thy  bands ; 
And  oh  !  once  more  thou  hadst  held  our  throne 

And  ruled  thy  Scotish  lands  ! 

But  while  the  King  o'er  his  foes  still  raged 

With  a  heart  that  nought  could  tame, 
Another  man  sprang  down  to  the  crypt ; 
And  with  his  sword  in  his  hand  hard-gripp'd, 

There  stood  Sir  Robert  Graeme. 

(Now  shame  on  the  recreant  traitor's  heart 

Who  durst  not  face  his  King 
Till  the  body  unarmed  was  wearied  out 

With  two-fold  combating  ! 

Ah  !  well  might  the  people  sing  and  say. 

As  oft  ye  have  heard  aright :  —  { 

**  O  Robert  Grceme,  O  Robert  Grceme,  \ 

Who  slew  our  King,  God  give  thee  shame  1'^''  ■ 

For  he  slew  him  not  as  a  knight.) 

And  the  naked  King  turned  round  at  bay, 

But  his  strength  had  passed  the  goal,  \ 

And  he  could  but  gasp  :  —  **  Mine  hour  is  come  ;  : 

But  oh  !  to  succour  thine  own  soul's  doom,  i 

Let  a  priest  now  shrive  my  soul ! "  \ 

\ 

And  the  traitor  looked  on  the  King's  spent  strength,  • 

And  said :  —  '*  Have  I  kept  my  word? —  j 

\ 
94  I 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

Yea,  King,  the  mortal  pledge  that  I  gave? 
No  black  friar's  shrift  thy  soul  shall  have, 
But  the  shrift  of  this  red  sword  !  " 

With  that  he  smote  his  King  through  the  breast ; 

And  all  they  three  in  that  pen 
Fell  on  him  and  stabbed  and  stabbed  him  there 

Like  merciless  murderous  meii. 

Yet  seemed  it  now  that  Sir  Robert  Grasme, 
Ere  the  King's  last  breath  was  o'er, 

Turned  sick  at  heart  with  the  deadly  sight 
And  would  have  done  no  more. 

But  a  cry  came  from  the  troop  above :  — 

**If  him  thou  do  not  slay, 
The  price  of  his  life  that  thou  dost  spare 

Thy  forfeit  life  shall  pay  !  " 

O  God !  what  more  did  I  hear  or  see, 

Or  how  should  I  tell  the  rest? 
But  there  at  length  our  King  lay  slain 

With  sixteen  wounds  in  his  breast. 

O  God  !  and  now  did  a  bell  boom  forth, 

And  the  murderers  turned  and  fled  ;  — 
Too  late,  too  late,  O  God,  did  it  sound  !  — 
And  I  heard  the  true  men  mustering  round, 
And  the  cries  and  the  coming  tread. 

95 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

But  ere  they  came,  to  the  black  death-gap 

Somewise  did  I  creep  and  steal ; 
And  lo  !  or  ever  I  swooned  away, 
Through  the  dusk  I  saw  where  the  white  face  lay 

In  the  Pit  of  Fortune's  Wheel. 


And  now,  ye  Scotish  maids  who  have  heard 
Dread  things  of  the  days  grown  old, — 

Even  at  the  last,  of  true  Queen  Jane 
May  somewhat  yet  be  told. 

And  how  she  dealt  for  her  dear  lord's  sake 
Dire  vengeance  manifold. 

'Twas  in  the  Charterhouse  of  Perth, 

In  the  fair-lit  Death-chapelle, 
That  the  slain  King's  corpse  on  bier  was  laid 

With  chaunt  and  requiem-knell. 

And  all  with  royal  wealth  of  balm 

Was  the  body  purified  ; 
And  none  could  trace  on  the  brow  and  lips 

The  death  that  he  had  died. 

In  his  robes  of  state  he  lay  asleep 

With  orb  and  sceptre  in  hand ; 
And  by  the  crown  he  wore  on  his  throne 

Was  his  kingly  forehead  spann'd. 

96 


THE    KING^S    TRAGEDY 

And,  girls,  'twas  a  sweet  sad  thing  to  see 

How  the  curling  golden  hair. 
As  in  the  day  of  the  poet's  youth. 

From  the  King's  crown  clustered  there. 

And  if  all  had  come  to  pass  in  the  brain 

That  throbbed  beneath  those  curls. 
Then  Scots  had  said  in  the  days  to  come 
That  this  their  soil  was  a  different  home 
And  a  different  Scotland,  girls  I 

And  the  Queen  sat  by  him  night  and  day, 

And  oft  she  knelt  in  prayer. 
All  wan  and  pale  in  the  widow's  veil 

That  shrouded  her  shining  hair. 

And  I  had  got  good  help  of  my  hurt : 

And  only  to  me  some  sign 
She  made ;   and  save  the  priests  that  were  there, 

No  face  would  she  see  but  mine. 

And  the  month  of  March  wore  on  apace ; 

And  now  fresh  couriers  fared 
Still  from  the  country  of  the  Wild  Scots 

With  news  of  the  traitors  snared. 

And  still  as  I  told  her  day  by  day, 
Her  pallor  changed  to  sight, 

97 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  the  frost  grew  to  a  furnace-flame 
That  burnt  her  visage  white. 

And  evermore  as  I  brought  her  word, 

She  bent  to  her  dead  King  James, 
And  in  the  cold  ear  with  fire-drawn  breath 

She  spoke  the  traitors'  names. 

But  when  the  name  of  Sir  Robert  Graeme 

Was  the  one  she  had  to  give, 
I  ran  to  hold  her  up  from  the  floor ; 
For  the  froth  was  on  her  lips,  and  sore 

I  feared  that  she  could  not  live. 

And  the  month  of  March  wore  nigh  to  its  end, 
And  still  was  the  death-pall  spread ; 

For  she  would  not  bury  her  slaughtered  lord 
Till  his  slayers  all  were  dead. 

And  now  of  their  dooms  dread  tidings  came. 

And  of  torments  fierce  and  dire ; 
And  nought  she  spake,  —  she  had  ceased  to  speak. 

But  her  eyes  were  a  soul  on  fire. 

But  when  I  told  her  the  bitter  end 

Of  the  stern  and  just  award. 
She  leaned  o'er  the  bier,  and  thrice  three  times 

She  kissed  the  lips  of  her  lord. 

98 


THE    KING'S    TRAGEDY 

And  then  she  said,  —  '*  My  King,  they  are  dead  !  " 

And  she  knelt  on  the  chapel-floor, 
And  whispered  low  with  a  strange  proud  smile,  — 

**  James,  James,  they  suffered  more  I  " 

Last  she  stood  up  to  her  queenly  height, 

But  she  shook  like  an  autumn  leaf. 
As  though  the  fire  wherein  she  burned 
Then  left  her  body,  and  all  were  turned 

To  winter  of  life-long  grief. 

And  * '  O  James  ! "  she  said,  —  *  *  My  James  ! "  she  said, — 

'*Alas  for  the  woful  thing. 
That  a  poet  true  and  a  friend  of  man, 
In  desperate  days  of  bale  and  ban. 

Should  needs  be  born  a  King  !  " 


THE   HOUSE  OF   LIFE 
^A  SONNET-SEQUENCE 


[The  present  full  series  of  The  House  of  Life  consists  of 
sonnets  only.  It  will  be  evident  that  many  among  those  now 
first  added  are  still  the  work  of  earlier  years.] 


A  Sonnet  is  a  momenfs  monument, — 

Memorial  from  the  SouVs  eternity 

To  one  dead  deathless  hour.     Look  that  it  be^ 
Whether  for  lustral  rite  or  dire  -portent  y 
Of  its  own  arduous  fulness  reverent: 

Carve  it  in  ivory  or  in  ebony. 

As  Day  or  Night  may  rule;  and  let  Time  see 
Its  flowering  crest  impearled  and  orient, 

A  Sonnet  is  a  coin :  its  face  reveals 

The  soul,  —  its  converse,  to  what  Power  His  due: — 
Whether  for  tribute  to  the  august  appeals 

Of  Life,  or  dower  in  Lovers  high  retinue. 
It  serve;  or,  'mid  the  dark  wharfs  cavernous  breath. 
In  Charon's  palm  it  pay  the  toll  to  Death, 


I 


PART  I 
YOUTH  AND  CHANGE 


SONNET   I 


LOVE   ENTHRONED 


T  MARKED  all  kindred  Powers  the  heart  finds  fair  :  — 

1  '  Truth,  with  awed  lips  ;  and  Hope,  with  eyes  upcast ; 
And  Fame,  whose  loud  wings  fan  the  ashen  Past 

To  signal-fires,  Oblivion's  flight  to  scare  ; 

And  Youth,  with  still  some  single  golden  hair 
Unto  his  shoulder  clinging,  since  the  last 
Embrace  wherein  two  sweet  arms  held  him  fast ; 

And  Life,  still  wreathing  flowers  for  Death  to  wear. 

Love's  throne  was  not  with  these  ;  but  far  above 
All  passionate  wind  of  welcome  and  farewell 

He  sat  in  breathless  bowers  they  dream  not  of ; 

Though  Truth  foreknow  Love's  heart,  and  Hope  foretell. 
And  Fame  be  for  Love's  sake  desirable. 

And  Youth  be  dear,  and  Life  be  sweet  to  Love. 


107 


SONNET  II 


BRIDAL    BIRTH 


AS  when  desire,  long  darkling,  dawns,  and  first 
The  mother  looks  upon  the  newborn  child. 
Even  so  my  Lady  stood  at  gaze  and  smiled 
When  her  soul  knew  at  length  the  Love  it  nurs'd. 
Born  with  her  life,  creature  of  poignant  thirst 
And  exquisite  hunger,  at  her  heart  Love  lay 
Quickening  in  darkness,  till  a  voice  that  day 
Cried  on  him,  and  the  bonds  of  birth  were  burst. 

Now,  shielded  in  his  wings,  our  faces  yearn 
Together,  as  his  fullgrown  feet  now  range 

The  grove,  and  his  warm  hands  our  couch  prepare 
Till  to  his  song  our  bodiless  souls  in  turn 

Be  born  his  children,  when  Death's  nuptial  change 
Leaves  us  for  light  the  halo  of  his  hair. 


io8 


SONNET  III 


t\  " 


LOVE'S    REDEMPTION 


OTHOU  who  at  Love's  hour  ecstatically 
Unto  my  lips  dost  evermore  present, 
The  body  and  blood  of  Love  in  sacrament ; 
Whom  I  have  neared  and  felt  thy  breath  to  be 
The  inmost  incense  of  his  sanctuary ; 

Who  without  speech  hast  owned  him,  and,  intent 
Upon  his  will,  thy  life  with  mine  hast  blent, 
And  murmured,  o'er  the  cup,  Remember  me  !  — 

O  what  from  thee  the  grace,  for  me  the  prize. 
And  what  to  Love  the  glory,  —  when  the  whole 
Of  the  deep  stair  thou  tread'st  to  the  dim  shoal 
And  weary  water  of  the  place  of  sighs, 
And  there  dost  work  deliverance,  as  thine  eyes 
Draw  up  my  prisoned  spirit  to  thy  soul  I 


109 


SONNBT IV 


LOVESIGHT 


WHEN  do  I  see  thee  most,  beloved  one  ? 
When  in  the  light  the  spirits  of  mine  eyes 
Before  thy  face,  their  altar,  solemnize 
The  worship  of  that  Love  through  thee  made  known? 
Or  when  in  the  dusk  hours,  (we  two  alone,) 
Close-kissed  and  eloquent  of  still  replies 
Thy  twilight-hidden  glimmering  visage  lies, 
And  my  soul  only  sees  thy  soul  its  own  ? 

O  love,  my  love  !  if  I  no  more  should  see 
Thyself,  nor  on  the  earth  the  shadow  of  thee, 

Nor  image  of  thine  eyes  in  any  spring, — 
How  then  should  sound  upon  Life's  darkening  slope 
The  ground-whirl  of  the  perished  leaves  of  Hope, 

The  wind  of  Death's  imperishable  wing? 


no 


SONNET    V 


HEART'S    HOPE 


BY  what  word's  power,  the  key  of  paths  untrod, 
Shall  I  the  difficult  deeps  of  Love  explore, 
Till  parted  waves  of  Song  yield  up  the  shore 
Even  as  that  sea  which  Israel  crossed  dryshod  ? 
For  lo  !  in  some  poor  rhythmic  period, 
Lady,  I  fain  would  tell  how  evermore 
Thy  soul  I  know  not  from  thy  body,  nor 
Thee  from  myself,  neither  our  love  from  God. 

Yea,  in  God's  name,  and  Love's,  and  thine,  would  I 
Draw  from  one  loving  heart  such  evidence 

As  to  all  hearts  all  things  shall  signify ; 

Tender  as  dawn's  first  hill-fire,  and  intense 
As  instantaneous  penetrating  sense, 

In  Spring's  birth-hour,  of  other  Springs  gone  by. 


/ 


III 


SONNET    VI 


THE    KISS 


WHAT  smouldering  senses  in  death's  sick  delay 
Or  seizure  of  malign  vicissitude 
Can  rob  this  body  of  honour,  or  denude 
This  soul  of  wedding-raiment  worn  to-day? 
For  lo  !  even  now  my  lady's  lips  did  play 
With  these  my  lips  such  consonant  interlude 
As  laurelled  Orpheus  longed  for  when  he  wooed 
The  half-drawn  hungering  face  with  that  last  lay. 

I  was  a  child  beneath  her  touch,  —  a  man 

When  breast  to  breast  we  clung,  even  I  and  she, — 
A  spirit  when  her  spirit  looked  through  me, — 
A  god  when  all  our  life-breath  met  to  fan 
Our  life-blood,  till  love's  emulous  ardours  ran, 
Fire  within  fire,  desire  in  deity. 


112 


7 


SONNET    VII 


NUPTIAL    SLEEP 


AT  length  their  long  kiss  severed,  with  sweet  smart 
And  as  the  last  slow  sudden  drops  are  shed 
From  sparkling  eves  when  all  the  storm  has  fled, 
So,  singly,  flagged  the  pulses  of  each  heart. 
Their  bosoms  sundered,  with  the  opening  start 
Of  married  flowers  to  either  side  outspread 
From  the  knit  stem  ;  yet  still  their  mouths,  burnt  red, 
Fawned  on  each  other  where  they  lay  apart. 
Sleep  sank  them  lower  than  the  tide  of  dreams. 
And  their  dreams  watched  them  sink,  and  slid  away ; 
Slowly  their  souls  swam  up  again,  through  gleams 
Of  watered  light  and  dull  drowned  waifs  of  day ; 
Till  from  some  wonder  of  new  woods  and  streams 
He  woke,  and  wondered  more ;  for  there  she  lay. 


"3 


SONNET    VIII 


SUPREME    SURRENDER 


TO  all  the  spirits  of  Love  that  wander  by 
Along  the  love-sown  fallow  field  of  sleep 
My  lady  lies  apparent ;  and  the  deep 
Calls  to  the  deep ;  and  no  man  sees  but  I. 
The  bliss  so  long  afar,  at  length  so  nigh, 

Rests  there  attained.    Methinks  proud  Love  must  weep 
When  Fate's  control  doth  from  his  harvest  reap 
The  sacred  hour  for  which  the  years  did  sigh. 

First  touched,  the  hand  now  warm  around  my  neck 
Taught  memory  long  to  mock  desire  :   and  lo  ! 
Across  my  breast  the  abandoned  hair  doth  flow, 
Where  one  shorn  tress  long  stirred  the  longing  ache : 
And  next  the  heart  that  trembled  for  its  sake 
Lies  the  queen-heart  in  sovereign  overthrow. 


Tl^n^ 


r 


SONNET   IX 


TTH    LOVE'S    LOVERS 


SOME  ladies  love  the  jewels  in  Love's  zone 
And  gold-tipped  darts  he  hath  for  painless  play- 
In  idle  scornful  hours  he  flings  away ; 
And  some  that  listen  to  his  lute's  soft  tone 
Do  love  to  deem  the  silver  praise  their  own  ; 

Some  prize  his  blindfold  sight ;  and  there  be  they 
Who  kissed  his  wings  which  brought  him  yesterday 
And  thank  his  wings  to-day  that  he  is  flown. 

My  lady  only  loves  the  heart  of  Love : 

Therefore  Love's  heart,  my  lady,  hath  for  thee 
His  bower  of  unimagined  flower  and  tree  : 
There  kneels  he  now,  and  all-anhungered  of 
Thine  eyes  grey-lit  in  shadowing  hair  above, 
Seals  with  thy  mouth  his  immortality. 


"5 


SONNET  X 


PASSION    AND    WORSHIP 


ONE  flame-winged  brought  a  white-winged  harp-player 
Even  where  my  lady  and  I  lay  all  alone ; 
Saying  :   ''  Behold,  this  minstrel  is  unknown  ; 
Bid  him  depart,  for  I  am  minstrel  here  : 
Only  my  strains  are  to  Love's  dear  ones  dear." 

Then  said  I :  ' '  Through  thine  hautboy's  rapturous  tone 
Unto  my  lady  still  this  harp  makes  moan, 
And  still  she  deems  the  cadence  deep  and  clear." 

Then  said  my  lady  :  <*  Thou  art  Passion  of  Love, 

And  this  Love's  Worship  :  both  he  plights  to  me.  ^ 

Thy  mastering  music  walks  the  sunlit  sea : 

But  where  wan  water  trembles  in  the  grove 

And  the  wan  moon  is  all  the  light  thereof. 

This  harp  still  makes  my  name  its  voluntary." 


ii6 


SONNET  XI 


THE    PORTRAIT 


OLORD  of  all  compassionate  control, 
O  Love  I  let  this  my  lady's  picture  glow 
Under  my  hand  to  praise  her  name,  and  show 
Even  of  her  inner  self  the  perfect  whole  : 
That  he  who  seeks  her  beauty's  furthest  goal, 
Beyond  the  light  that  the  sweet  glances  throw 
And  refluent  wave  of  the  sweet  smile,  may  know 
The  very  sky  and  sea-line  of  her  soul. 

Lo  !  it  is  done.     Above  the  long  lithe  throat 
The  mouth's  mould  testifies  of  voice  and  kiss, 
The  shadowed  eyes  remember  and  foresee. 
Her  face  is  made  her  shrine.     Let  all  men  note 
That  in  all  years  (O  Love,  thy  gift  is  this  !) 
They  that  would  look  on  her  must  come  to  me. 


117 


SONNET  XII 


THE    LOVE-LETTER 


WARMED  by  her  hand  and  shadowed  by  her  hair 
As  close  she  leaned  and  poured  her  heart  through  thee, 
Whereof  the  articulate  throbs  accompany 
The  smooth  black  stream  that  makes  thy  whiteness  fair, — 
Sweet  fluttering  sheet,  even  of  her  breath  aware, — 
Oh  let  thy  silent  song  disclose  to  me 
That  soul  wherewith  her  lips  and  eyes  agree 
Like  married  music  in  Love's  answering  air. 

Fain  had  I  watched  her  when,  at  some  fond  thought, 
Her  bosom  to  the  writing  closelier  press'd. 
And  her  breast's  secrets  peered  into  her  breast ; 
When,  through  eyes  raised  an  instant,  her  soul  sought 
My  soul,  and  from  the  sudden  confluence  caught 
The  words  that  made  her  love  the  loveliest. 


ii8 


/ 


SONNET  XIII 


THE    LOVERS'   WALK 


SWEET  twining  hedgeflowers  wind-stirred  in  no  wise 
On  this  June  day  ;  and  hand  that  clings  in  hand  : — 
Still  glades  :    and  meeting  faces  scarcely  fann'd  : — 
An  osier-odoured  stream  that  draws  the  skies 
Deep  to  its  heart ;  and  mirrored  eyes  in  eyes  : — 
Fresh  hourly  wonder  o'er  the  Summer  land 
Of  light  and  cloud ;  and  two  souls  softly  spann'd 
With  one  o'erarching  heaven  of  smiles  and  sighs : — 

Even  such  their  path,  whose  bodies  lean  unto 
Each  other's  visible  sweetness  amorously, — 
Whose  passionate  hearts  lean  by  Love's  high  decree 

Together  on  his  heart  for  ever  true, 

As  the  cloud-foaming  firmamental  blue 
Rest  on  the  blue  line  of  a  foamless  sea. 


119 


\ 


SONNET  XIV 


YOUTH'S   ANTIPHONY 


^  ^  T  LOVE  you,  sweet :  how  can  you  ever  learn 
1     How  much  I  love  you?"     "  You  I  love  even  so, 
And  so  I  learn  it."     *'  Sweet,  you  cannot  know 

How  fair  you  are."     '*  If  fair  enough  to  earn 

Your  love,  so  much  is  all  my  love's  concern." 

'*  My  love  grows  hourly,  sweet."    '*  Mine  too  doth  grow. 
Yet  love  seemed  full  so  many  hours  ago  !  " 

Thus  lovers  speak,  till  kisses  claim  their  turn. 

Ah  !  happy  they  to  whom  such  words  as  these 

In  youth  have  served  for  speech  the  whole  day  long, 
Hour  after  hour,  remote  from  the  world's  throng, 
Work,  contest,  fame,  all  life's  confederate  pleas, — 
What  while  Love  breathed  in  sighs  and  silences 
Through  two  blent  souls  one  rapturous  undersong. 


1 20 


SONNET  XV 


YOUTH'S   SPRING-TRIBUTE 


ON  this  sweet  bank  your  head  thrice  sweet  and  dear 
I  lay,  and  spread  your  hair  on  either  side, 
And  see  the  newborn  woodflowers  bashful-eyed 
Look  through  the  golden  tresses  here  and  there. 
On  these  debateable  borders  of  the  year 

Spring's  foot  half  falters ;  scarce  she  yet  may  know 
The  leafless  blackthorn-blossom  from  the  snow ; 
And  through  her  bowers  the  wind's  way  still  is  clear. 

But  April's  sun  strikes  down  the  glades  to-day ; 
So  shut  your  eyes  upturned,  and  feel  my  kiss 

Creep,  as  the  Spring  now  thrills  through  every  spray, 
Up  your  warm  throat  to  your  warm  lips  :  for  this 
Is  even  the  hour  of  Love's  sworn  suitservice, 

With  whom  cold  hearts  are  counted  castaway. 


121 


SONNET  XVI 


THE    BIRTH-BOND 


HAVE  you  not  noted,  in  some  family 
Where  two  were  born  of  a  first  marriage-bed, 
How  still  they  own  their  gracious  bond,  though  fed 
And  nursed  on  the  forgotten  breast  and  knee?  — 
How  to  their  father's  children  they  shall  be 
In  act  and  thought  of  one  goodwill ;  but  each 
Shall  for  the  other  have,  in  silence  speech, 
And  in  a  word  complete  community? 

Even  so,  when  first  I  saw  you,  seemed  it,  love, 
That  among  souls  allied  to  mine  was  yet 

One  nearer  kindred  than  life  hinted  of. 

O  born  with  me  somewhere  that  men  forget, 
And  though  in  years  of  sight  and  sound  unmet, 

Known  for  my  soul's  birth-partner  well  enough  ! 


122 


SONNET   XVII 


A    DAY   OF   LOVE 


THOSE  envied  places  which  do  know  her  well, 
And  are  so  scornful  of  this  lonely  place, 
Even  now  for  once  are  emptied  of  her  grace : 
Nowhere  but  here  she  is  :  and  while  Love's  spell 
From  his  predominant  presence  doth  compel 
All  alien  hours,  an  outworn  populace. 
The  hours  of  Love  fill  full  the  echoing  space 
With  sweet  confederate  music  favourable. 

Now  many  memories  make  solicitous 

The  delicate  love-lines  of  her  mouth,  till,  lit 
With  quivering  fire,  the  words  take  wing  from  it 

As  here  between  our  kisses  we  sit  thus 

Speaking  of  things  remembered,  and  so  sit 

Speechless  while  things  forgotten  call  to  us. 


123 


SONNET  XVIII 


BEAUTY'S    PAGEANT 


WHAT  dawn-pulse  at  the  heart  of  heaven,  or  last 
Incarnate  flower  of  culminating  day,  — 
What  marshalled  marvels  on  the  skirts  of  May, 
Or  song  full-quired,  sweet  June's  encomiast ; 
What  glory  of  change  by  nature's  hand  amass'd 
Can  vie  with  all  those  moods  of  varying  grace 
Which  o'er  one  loveliest  woman's  form  and  face 
Within  this  hour,  within  this  room,  have  pass'd?.. 

Love's  very  vesture  and  elect  disguise 

Was  each  fine  movement, — wonder  new-begot 
Of  lily  or  swan  or  swan-stemmed  galiot ; 

Joy  to  his  sight  who  now  the  sadlier  sighs. 

Parted  again  ;  and  sorrow  yet  for  eyes 

Unborn,  that  read  these  words  and  saw  her  not. 


124 


l/ 


SONNET  XIX 


GENIUS    IN    BEAUTY 


BEAUTY  like  hers  is  genius.     Not  the  call 
Of  Homer's  or  of  Dante's  heart  sublime,  — 
Not  Michael's  hand  furrowing  the  zones  of  time,  — 
Is  more  with  compassed  mysteries  musical ; 
Nay,  not  in  Spring's  or  Summer's  sweet  footfall 
More  gathered  gifts  exuberant  Life  bequeathes 
Than  doth  this  sovereign  face,  whose  love-spell  breathes 
Even  from  its  shadowed  contour  on  the  wall. 

As  many  men  are  poets  in  their  youth, 

But  for  one  sweet-strung  soul  the  wires  prolong 
Even  through  all  change  the  indomitable  song  ; 
So  in  likewise  the  envenomed  years,  whose  tooth 
Rpnds  shallower  grace  with  ruin  void  of  ruth. 
Upon  this  beauty's  power  shall  wreak  no  wrong. 


125 


SONNET   XX 


SILENT    NOON 


YOUR  hands  lie  open  in  the  long  fresh  grass,  — 
The  finger-points  look  through  like  rosy  blooms  : 
Your  eyes  smile  peace.     The  pasture  gleams  and  glooms 
'Neath  billowing  skies  that  scatter  and  amass. 
All  round  our  nest,  far  as  the  eye  can  pass. 
Are  golden  kingcup-fields  with  silver  edge 
Where  the  cow-parsley  skirts  the  hawthorn-hedge. 
'Tis  visible  silence,  still  as  the  hour-glass. 

Deep  in  the  sun-searched  growths  the  dragon-fly 
Hangs  like  a  blue  thread  loosened  from  the  sky :  — 

So  this  wing'd  hour  is  dropt  to  us  from  above. 
Oh  !  clasp  we  to  our  hearts,  for  deathless  dower. 
This  close-companioned  inarticulate  hour  | 

When  twofold  silence  was  the  song  of  love. 


126 


SONNET  XXI 


GRACIOUS    MOONLIGHT 


Even  as  the  moon  grows  queenlier  in  mid-space 
When  the  sky  darkens,  and  her  cloud-rapt  car 
Thrills  with  intenser  radiance  from  afar,  — 
So  lambent,  lady,  beams  thy  sovereign  grace 
When  the  drear  soul  desires  thee.     Of  that  face 
What  shall  be  said,  —  which,  like  a  governing  star. 
Gathers  and  garners  from  all  things  that  are 
Their  silent  penetrative  loveliness? 

O'er  water-daisies  and  wild  waifs  of  Spring, 

There  where  the  iris  rears  its  gold-crowned  sheaf 
With  flowering  rush  and  sceptred  arrow-leaf. 
So  have  I  marked  Queen  Dian,  in  bright  ring 
Of  cloud  above  and  wave  below,  take  wing 

And  chase  night's  gloom,  as  thou  the  spirit's  grief. 


127 


SONNET  XXII 


LOVE-SWEETNESS 


SWEET  dimness  of  her  loosened  hair's  downfall 
About  thy  face ;  her  sweet  hands  round  thy  head 
In  gracious  fostering  union  garlanded; 
Her  tremulous  smiles  ;  her  glances'  sweet  recall 
Of  love  ;  her  murmuring  sighs  memorial ; 

Her  mouth's  culled  sweetness  by  thy  kisses  shed 
On  cheeks  and  neck  and  eyelids,  and  so  led 
Back  to  her  mouth  which  answers  there  for  all :  — 

What  sweeter  than  these  things,  except  the  thing 

In  lacking  which  all  these  would  lose  their  sweet :  — 
The  confident  heart's  still  fervour :  the  swift  beat 
And  soft  subsidence  of  the  spirit's  wing, 
Then  when  it  feels,  in  cloud-girt  wayfaring. 
The  breath  of  kindred  plumes  against  its  feet? 


128 


SONNET   XXIII 


HEART'S    HAVEN 


SOMETIMES  she  is  a  child  within  mine  arms, 
Cowering  beneath  dark  wings  that  love  must  chase, 
With  still  tears  showering  and  averted  face, 
Inexplicably  filled  with  faint  alarms  : 
And  oft  from  mine  own  spirit's  hurtling  harms 
I  crave  the  refuge  of  her  deep  embrace,  — 
Against  all  ills  the  fortified  strong  place 
And  sweet  reserve  of  sovereign  counter-charms. 

And  Love,  our  light  at  night  and  shade  at  noon. 
Lulls  us  to  rest  with  songs,  and  turns  away- 
All  shafts  of  shelterless  tumultuous  day. 

Like  the  moon's  growth,  his  face  gleams  through  his  tune  ; 

And  as  soft  waters  warble  to  the  moon. 

Our  answering  spirits  chime  one  roundelay. 


129 


L 


SONNET  XXIV 


LOVE'S    BAUBLES 


[STOOD  where  Love  in  brimming  armfuls  bore 
Slight  wanton  flowers  and  foolish  toys  of  fruit : 
And  round  him  ladies  thronged  in  warm  pursuit, 
Fingered  and  lipped  and  proffered  the  strange  store. 
And  from  one  hand  the  petal  and  the  core 

Savoured  of  sleep  ;  and  cluster  and  curled  shoot 
Seemed  from  another  hand  like  shame's  salute, — 
Gifts  that  I  felt  my  cheek  was  blushing  for. 

At  last  Love  bade  my  Lady  give  the  same : 
And  as  I  looked,  the  dew  was  light  thereon; 
And  as  I  took  them,  at  her  touch  they  shone 

With  inmost  heaven-hue  of  the  heart  of  flame. 

And  then  Love  said  :   '*  Lo  !  when  the  hand  is  hers, 
Follies  of  love  are  love's  true  ministers." 


130 


SONNET   XXV 


PRIDE    OF    YOUTH 


EVEN  as  a  child,  of  sorrow  that  we  give 
The  dead,  but  little  in  his  heart  can  find, 
Since  without  need  of  thought  to  his  clear  mind 
Their  turn  it  is  to  die  and  his  to  live :  — 
Even  so  the  winged  New  Love  smiles  to  receive 
Along  his  eddying  plumes  the  auroral  wind, 
Nor,  forward  glorying,  casts  one  look  behind 
Where  night-rack  shrouds  the  Old  Love  fugitive. 

There  is  a  change  in  every  hour's  recall. 
And  the  last  cowslip  in  the  fields  we  see 
On  the  same  day  with  the  first  corn-poppy. 

Alas  for  hourly  change  !     Alas  for  all 

The  loves  that  from  his  hand  proud  Youth  lets  fall, 
Even  as  the  beads  of  a  told  rosary  1 


131 


SONNET  XXVI 


WINGED    HOURS 


EACH  hour  until  we  meet  is  as  a  bird 
That  wings  from  far  his  gradual  way  along 
The  rustling  covert  of  my  soul,  —  his  song 
Still  loudlier  trilled  through  leaves  more  deeply  stirr'd : 
But  at  the  hour  of  meeting,  a  clear  word 

Is  every  note  he  sings,  in  Love's  own  tongue ; 
Yet,  Love,  thou  know'st  the  sweet  strain  suffers  wrong, 
Through  our  contending  kisses  oft  unheard. 

What  of  that  hour  at  last,  when  for  her  sake 
No  wing  may  fly  to  me  nor  song  may  flow ; 
When,  wandering  round  my  life  unleaved,  I  know 

The  bloodied  feathers  scattered  in  the  brake. 
And  think  how  she,  far  from  me,  with  like  eyes 
Sees  through  the  untuneful  bough  the  wingless  skies  ? 


132  i 


SONNET  XXVII 


MID-RAPTURE 


THOU  lovely  and  beloved,  thou  my  love; 
Whose  kiss  seems  still  the  first ;  whose  summoning  eyes. 
Even  now,  as  for  our  love-world's  new  sunrise. 
Shed  very  dawn ;  whose  voice,  attuned  above 
All  modulation  of  the  deep-bowered  dove. 
Is  like  a  hand  laid  softly  on  the  soul ; 
Whose  hand  is  like  a  sweet  voice  to  control 
Those  worn  tired  brows  it  hath  the  keeping  of :  — 

What  word  can  answer  to  thy  word,  —  what  gaze 
To  thine,  which  now  absorbs  within  its  sphere 
My  worshipping  face,  till  I  am  mirrored  there 

Light-circled  in  a  heaven  of  deep-drawn  rays? 

What  clasp,  what  kiss  mine  inmost  heart  can  prove, 
O  lovely  and  beloved,  O  my  love? 


133 


SONNET  XXVIII 


HEART'S    COMPASS 


SOMETIMES  thou  seem'st  not  as  thyself  alone, 
But  as  the  meaning  of  all  things  that  are ; 
A  breathless  wonder,  shadowing  forth  afar 
Some  heavenly  solstice  hushed  and  halcyon  ; 
Whose  unstirred  lips  are  music's  visible  tone ; 
Whose  eyes  the  sun-gate  of  the  soul  unbar, 
Being  of  its  furthest  fires  oracular ;  — 
The  evident  heart  of  all  life  sown  and  mown. 


Even  such  Love  is  ;   and  is  not  thy  name  Love  ? 
Yea,  by  thy  hand  the  Love-god  rends  apart 
All  gathering  clouds  of  Night's  ambiguous  art ; 

Flings  them  far  down,  and  sets  thine  eyes  above ; 

And  simply,  as  some  gage  of  flower  or  glove, 
Stakes  with  a  smile  the  world  against  thy  heart. 


134 


SONNET  XXIX 


SOUL-LIGHT 


WHAT  other  woman  could  be  loved  like  you, 
Or  how  of  you  should  love  possess  his  fill? 
After  the  fulness  of  all  rapture,  still, — 
As  at  the  end  of  some  deep  avenue 
A  tender  glamour  of  day,  —  there  comes  to  view 
Far  in  your  eyes  a  yet  more  hungering  thrill, — 
Such  fire  as  Love's  soul-winnowing  hands  distil 
Even  from  his  inmost  ark  of  light  and  dew. 

And  as  the  traveller  triumphs  with  the  sun, 

Glorying  in  heat's  mid-height,  yet  startide  brings 
Wonder  new-born,  and  still  fresh  transport  springs 

From  limpid  lambent  hours  of  day  begun  ;  — 

Even  so,  through  eyes  and  voice,  your  soul  doth  move 
My  soul  with  changeful  light  of  infinite  love. 


135 


SONNE  T  XXX 


THE    MOONSTAR 


LADY,  I  thank  thee  for  thy  loveliness, 
Because  my  lady  is  more  lovely  still. 
Glorying  I  gaze,  and  yield  with  glad  goodv^ill 
To  thee  thy  tribute ;  by  whose  sweet-spun  dress 
Of  delicate  life  Love  labours  to  assess 

My  lady's  absolute  queendom ;  saying,  ''Lo! 
How  high  this  beauty  is,  which  yet  doth  show 
But  as  that  beauty's  sovereign  votaress." 

Lady,  I  saw  thee  with  her,  side  by  side ; 

And  as,  when  night's  fair  fires  their  queen  surround, 

An  emulous  star  too  near  the  moon  will  ride, — 
Even  so  thy  rays  within  her  luminous  bound 
Were  traced  no  more ;   and  by  the  light  so  drown'd. 

Lady,  not  thou  but  she  was  glorified. 


136 


SONNET  XXXI 


LAST    FIRE 


LOVE,  through  your  spirit  and  mine  what  summer  eve 
Now  glows  with  glory  of  all  things  possessed,   -^   * 
Since  this  day's  sun  of  rapture  filled  the  west 
And  the  light  sweetened  as  the  fire  took  leave? 
Awhile  now  softlier  let  your  bosom  heave, 

As  in  Love's  harbour,  even  that  loving  breast, 
All  care  takes  refuge  while  we  sink  to  rest. 
And  mutual  dreams  the  bygone  bliss  retrieve. 

Many  the  days  that  Winter  keeps  in  store, 

Sunless  throughout,  or  whose  brief  sun-glimpses 
Scarce  shed  the  heaped  snow  through  the  naked  trees. 

This  day  at  least  was  Summer's  paramour, 

Sun-coloured  to  the  imperishable  core 

With  sweet  well-being  of  love  and  full  heart's  ease. 


137 


SONNET  XXXII 


HER    GIFTS 


HIGH  grace,  the  dower  of  queens  ;  and  therewithal 
Some  wood-born  wonder's  sweet  simplicity ; 

A  glance  like  water  brimming  with  the  sky 
Or  hyacinth-light  where  forest-shadows  fall ; 
Such  thrilling  pallor  of  cheek  as  doth  enthral 

The  heart ;   a  mouth  whose  passionate  forms  imply 

All  music  and  all  silence  held  thereby ; 
Deep  golden  locks,  her  sovereign  coronal ; 
A  round  reared  neck,  meet  column  of  Love's  shrine 

To  cling  to  when  the  heart  takes  sanctuary ; 

Hands  which  for  ever  at  Love's  bidding  be, 
And  soft-stirred  feet  still  answering  to  his  sign  :  — 

These  are  her  gifts,  as  tongue  may  tell  them  o'er. 

Breathe  low  her  name,  my  soul ;  for  that  means  more, 


138 


SONNET  XXXIII 


EQUAL    TROTH 


NOT  by  one  measure  mayst  thou  mete  our  love ; 
For  how  should  I  be  loved  as  I  love  thee  ?  —        ' 
I,  graceless,  joyless,  lacking  absolutely 
All  gifts  that  with  thy  queenship  best  behove ;  — 
Thou,  throned  in  every  heart's  elect  alcove, 

And  crowned  with  garlands  culled  from  every  tree. 
Which  for  no  head  but  thine,  by  Love's  decree. 
All  beauties  and  all  mysteries  interwove. 

But  here  thine  eyes  and  lips  yield  soft  rebuke  :  — 
'*Then  only,"  (say'st  thou)  **  could  I  love  thee  less. 
When  thou  couldst  doubt  my  love's  equality." 
Peace,  sweet !  If  not  to  sum  but  worth  we  look, — 
Thy  heart's  transcendence,  not  my  heart's  excess,  — 
Then  more  a  thousandfold  thou  lov'st  than  L 


139 


SONNET   XXXIV 


VENUS    VICTRIX 


COULD  Juno's  self  more  sovereign  presence  wear 
Than  thou,  'mid  other  ladies  throned  in  grace ?- 
Or  Pallas,  when  thou  bend'st  with  soul-stilled  face 
O'er  poet's  page  gold-shadowed  in  thy  hair? 
Dost  thou  than  Venus  seem  less  heavenly  fair 
When  o'er  the  sea  of  love's  tumultuous  trance 
Hovers  thy  smile,  and  mingles  with  thy  glance 
That  sweet  voice  like  the  last  wave  murmuring  there? 

Before  such  triune  lovliness  divine 

Awestruck  I  ask,  which  goddess  here  most  claims 
The  prize  that,  howsoe'er  adjudged,  is  thine? 

Then  Love  breathes  low  the  sweetest  of  thy  names ; 
And  Venus  Victrix  to  my  heart  doth  bring 
Herself,  the  Helen  of  her  guerdoning. 


140 


SONNET  XXXV 


THE    DARK    GLASS 


NOT  I  myself  know  all  my  love  for  thee : 
How  should  I  reach  so  far,  who  cannot  weigh 
To-morrow's  dower  by  gage  of  yesterday  ? 
Shall  birth  and  death,  and  all  dark  names  that  be 
As  doors  and  windows  bared  to  some  loud  sea, 

Lash  deaf  mine  ears  and  blind  my  face  with  spray ; 
And  shall  my  sense  pierce  love,  —  the  last  relay 
And  ultimate  outpost  of  eternity? 

Lo  !  what  am  I  to  Love,  the  lord  of  all? 

One  murmuring  shell  he  gathers  from  the  sand, — 
One  little  heart-flame  sheltered  in  his  hand. 

Yet  through  thine  eyes  he  grants  me  clearest  call 

And  veriest  touch  of  powers  primordial 
That  any  hour-girt  life  may  understand. 


141 


SONNET  XXXVI 


THE    LAMP'S    SHRINE 


SOMETIMES  I  fain  would  find  in  thee  some  fault, 
That  I  might  love  thee  still  in  spite  of  it : 
Yet  how  should  our  Lord  Love  curtail  one  whit 
Thy  perfect  praise  whom  most  he  would  exalt? 
Alas  I  he  can  but  make  my  heart's  low  vault 
Even  in  men's  sight  unworthier,  being  lit 
By  thee,  who  thereby  show'st  more  exquisite 
Like  fiery  chrysoprase  in  deep  basalt. 

Yet  will  I  nowise  shrink ;  but  at  Love's  shrine 
Myself  within  the  beams  his  brow  doth  dart 
Will  set  the  flashing  jewel  of  thy  heart 

In  that  dull  chamber  where  it  deigns  to  shine : 
For  lo  !  in  honour  of  thine  excellencies 
My  heart  takes  pride  to  show  how  poor  it  is. 


142 


SONNET  XXXVII 


LIFE-IN-LOVE 


vv^V 


NOT  in  thy  body  is  thy  life  at  all 
But  in  this  lady's  lips  and  hands  and  eyes ; 
Through  these  she  yields  thee  life  that  vivifies 
What  else  vv^ere  sorrow's  servant  and  death's  thrall. 
Look  on  thyself  without  her,  and  recall 

The  waste  remembrance  and  forlorn  surmise 
That  lived  but  in  a  dead-drawn  breath  of  sighs 
O'er  vanished  hours  and  hours  eventual. 

Even  so  much  life  hath  the  poor  tress  of  hair 
Which,  stored  apart,  is  all  love  hath  to  show 
For  heart-beats  and  for  fire-heats  long  ago ; 

Even  so  much  life  endures  unknown,  even  where, 
'Mid  change  the  changeless  night  environeth. 
Lies  all  that  golden  hair  undimmed  in  death. 


143 


V  h 


SONNET   XXXVIII 


THE    LOVE-MOON 


^  ^  \  X  7HEN  that  dead  face,  bowered  in  the  furthest  years, 
V  V       Which  once  was  all  the  life  years  held  for  thee, 
K  ^.    ^-  Can  now  scarce  bid  the  tides  of  memory 


cr      -f         Cast  on  thy  soul  a  little  spray  of  tears,  — 
^^^  How  canst  thou  gaze  into  these  eyes  of  hers 

Whom  now  thy  heart  delights  in,  and  not  see 
Within  each  orb  Love's  philtred  euphrasy 
Make  them  of  buried  troth  remembrancers?" 


**Nay,  pitiful  Love,  nay,  loving  Pity!  Well 

Thou  knowest  that  in  these  twain  I  have  confessed 
Two  very  voices  of  thy  summoning  bell. 
;\,>  \  Nay,  Master,  shall  not  Death  make  manifest 

In  these  the  culminant  changes  which  approve 
The  love-moon  that  must  light  my  soul  to  Love  ?  " 


144 


SONNET  XXXIX 


THE    MORROW'S    MESSAGE 


^^T^HOU  Ghost,"  I  said,  **  and  is  thy  name  To-day?— 
1     '  Yesterday's  son,  with  such  an  abject  brow  ! — 
And  can  To-morrow  be  more  pale  than  thou  ?  " 

While  yet  I  spoke,  the  silence  answered:   **  Yea, 

Henceforth  our  issue  is  all  grieved  and  grey, 
And  each  beforehand  makes  such  poor  avow 
As  of  old  leaves  beneath  the  budding  bough 

Or  night-drift  that  the  sundawn  shreds  away." 

Then  cried  I :   **  Mother  of  many  malisons, 
O  Earth,  receive  me  to  thy  dusty  bed  ! " 
But  therewithal  the  tremulous  silence  said : 
**  Lo  !  Love  yet  bids  thy  lady  greet  thee  once  :  — 
Yea,  twice,  — whereby  thy  life  is  still  the  sun's  ; 

And  thrice,  —  whereby  the  shadow  of  death  is  dead." 


14s 


SONNE\T    XL 


SLEEPLESS   DREAMS 


GIRT  in  dark  growths,  yet  glimmering  with  one  star, 
O  night  desirous  as  the  nights  of  youth  I 
Why  should  my  heart  within  thy  spell,  forsooth, 
Now  beat,  as  the  bride's  finger-pulses  are 
Quickened  within  the  girdling  golden  bar? 

What  wings  are  these  that  fan  my  pillow  smooth? 
And  why  does  Sleep,  waved  back  by  Joy  and  Ruth, 
Tread  softly  round  and  gaze  at  me  from  far  ? 

Nay,  night  deep-leaved  !  And  would  Love  feign  in  thee 
Some  shadowy  palpitating  grove  that  bears 
Rest  for  man's  eyes  and  music  for  his  ears  ? 

O  lonely  night !  art  thou  not  known  to  me, 

A  thicket  hung  with  masks  of  mockery 
And  watered  with  the  wasteful  warmth  of  tears  ? 


146 


SONNET  XLI 


SEVERED   SELVES 


TWO  separate  divided  silences, 
Which,  brought  together,  would  find  loving  voice ; 
Tw^o  glances  w^hich  together  w^ould  rejoice 
In  love,  now  lost  like  stars  beyond  dark  trees ; 
Two  hands  apart  whose  touch  alone  gives  ease ; 

Two  bosoms  which,  heart-shrined  with  mutual  flame, 
Would,  meeting  in  one  clasp,  be  made  the  same  ; 
Two  souls,  the  shores  wave-mocked  of  sundering  seas  : — 

Such  are  we  now.     Ah  !  may  our  hope  forecast 

Indeed  one  hour  again,  when  on  this  stream 

Of  darkened  love  once  more  the  light  shall  gleam  ? — 

An  hour  how  slow  to  come,  how  quickly  past,  — 

Which  blooms  and  fades,  and  only  leaves  at  last, 

Faint  as  shed  flowers,  the  attenuated  dream. 


147 


SONNET    XLII 


THROUGH    DEATH    TO    LOVE 


LIKE  labour-laden  moonclouds  faint  to  flee 
From  winds  that  sweep  the  winter-bitten  wold, — 
Like  multiform  circumfluence  manifold 
Of  night's  flood-tide,  —  like  terrors  that  agree 
Of  hoarse-tongued  fire  and  inarticulate  sea,  — 

Even  such,  within  some  glass  dimmed  by  our  breath. 
Our  hearts  discern  wild  images  of  Death, 
Shadows  and  shoals  that  edge  eternity. 

Howbeit  athwart  Death's  imminent  shade  doth  soar 
One  Power,  than  flow  of  stream  or  flight  of  dove 
Sweeter  to  glide  around,  to  brood  above. 
Tell  me,  my  heart,  —  what  angel-greeted  door 
Or  threshold  of  wing-winnowed  threshing-floor 

Hath  guest  fire-fledged  as  thine,  whose  lord  is  Love? 


748 


SONNET    XLIII 


HOPE     OVERTAKEN 


I  DEEMED  thy  garments,  O  my  Hope,  were  grey, 
So  far  I  viewed  thee.     Now  the  space  between 
Is  passed  at  length ;  and  garmented  in  green 
Even  as  in  days  of  yore  thou  stand'st  to-day. 
Ah  God  !  and  but  for  lingering  dull  dismay, 
On  all  that  road  our  footsteps  erst  had  been 
Even  thus  commingled,  and  our  shadows  seen 
Blent  on  the  hedgerows  and  the  water-way. 

O  Hope  of  mine  whose  eyes  are  living  love. 

No  eyes  but  hers,  —  O  Love  and  Hope  the  same  ! 
Lean  close  to  me,  for  now  the  sinking  sun 
That  warmed  our  feet  scarce  gilds  our  hair  above. 
O  hers  thy  voice  and  very  hers  thy  name  ! 
Alas,  cling  round  me,  for  the  day  is  done  ! 


149 


SONNET    XLIV 


LOVE     AND     HOPE 


BLESS  love  and  hope.     Full  many  a  withered  year 
Whirled  past  us,  eddying  to  its  chill  doomsday ; 
And  clasped  together  where  the  blown  leaves  lay, 
We  long  have  knelt  and  wept  full  many  a  tear. 
Yet  lo  !  one  hour  at  last,  the  Spring's  compeer. 
Flutes  softly  to  us  from  some  green  byeway : 
Those  years,  those  tears  are  dead,  but  only  they :  — 
Bless  love  and  hope,  true  soul ;  for  we  are  here. 

Cling  heart  to  heart ;  nor  of  this  hour  demand 
Whether  in  very  truth,  when  we  are  dead, 
Our  hearts  shall  wake  to  know  Love's  golden  head 

Sole  sunshine  of  the  imperishable  land  ; 

Or  but  discern,  through  night's  unfeatured  scope, 
Scorn-fired  at  length  the  illusive  eyes  of  Hope. 


150 


SONNET    XLV 


CLOUD     AND     WIND 


LOVE,  should  I  fear  death  most  for  you  or  me? 
Yet  if  you  die,  can  I  not  follow  you, 
Forcing  the  straits  of  change  ?  Alas  !  but  who 
Shall  wrest  a  bond  from  night's  inveteracy, 
Ere  yet  my  hazardous  soul  put  forth,  to  be 

Her  warrant  against  all  her  haste  might  rue  ?  — 
Ah !  in  your  eyes  so  reached  what  dumb  adieu, 
What  unsunned  gyres  of  waste  eternity  ? 

And  if  I  die  the  first,  shall  death  be  then 

A  lampless  watchtower  whence  I  see  you  weep?  - 
Or  (woe  is  me  I  )  a  bed  wherein  my  sleep 
Ne'er  notes  (as  death's  dear  cup  at  last  you  drain), 
The  hour  when  you  too  learn  that  all  is  vain 

And  that  Hope  sows  what  Love  shall  never  reap  ? 


151 


SONNET  XL  VI 


SECRET    PARTING 


BECAUSE  our  talk  was  of  the  cloud-control 
And  moon-track  of  the  journeying  face  of  Fate, 
Her  tremulous  kisses  faltered  at  love's  gate 
And  her  eyes  dreamed  against  a  distant  goal : 
But  soon,  remembering  her  how  brief  the  whole 
Of  joy,  which  its  own  hours  annihilate, 
Her  set  gaze  gathered,  thirstier  than  of  late, 
And  as  she  kissed,  her  mouth  became  her  soul. 

Thence  in  what  ways  we  wandered,  and  how  strove 
To  build  with  fire-tried  vows  the  piteous  home 
Which  memory  haunts  and  whither  sleep  may  roam, — 

They  only  know  for  whom  the  roof  of  Love 

Is  the  still-seated  secret  of  the  grove. 

Nor  spire  may  rise  nor  bell  be  heard  therefrom. 


152 


SONNET  XL  VI I 


PARTED    LOVE 


WHAT  shall  be  said  of  this  embattled  day 
And  armed  occupation  of  this  night 
By  all  thy  foes  beleaguered,  —  now  when  sight 
Nor  sound  denotes  the  loved  one  far  away  ? 
Of  these  thy  vanquished  hours  what  shalt  thou  say, — 
As  every  sense  to  which  she  dealt  delight 
Now  labours  lonely  o'er  the  stark  noon-height 
To  reach  the  sunset's  desolate  disarray? 

Stand  still,  fond  fettered  wretch  !  while  Memory's  art 
Parades  the  Past  before  thy  face,  and  lures 
Thy  spirit  to  her  passionate  portraitures : 
Till  the  tempestuous  tide-gates  flung  apart 
Flood  with  wild  will  the  hollows  of  thy  heart, 

And  thy  heart  rends  thee,  and  thy  body  endures/  : 


153 


SONNET  XL  VI 1 1 


BROKEN    MUSIC 


THE  mother  will  not  turn,  who  thinks  she  hears 
Her  nursling's  speech  first  grow  articulate ; 
But  breathless  with  averted  eyes  elate 
She  sits,  with  open  lips  and  open  ears, 
That  it  may  call  her  twice.     'Mid  doubts  and  fears 
Thus  oft  my  soul  has  hearkened;  till  the  song, 
A  central  moan  for  days,  at  length  found  tongue, 
And  the  sweet  music  welled  and  the  sweet  tears. 

But  now,  whatever  while  the  soul  is  fain 
To  list  that  wonted  murmur,  as  it  were 

The  speech-bound  sea-shell's  low  importunate  strain,- 
No  breath  of  song,  thy  voice  alone  is  there, 

O  bitterly  beloved  !  and  all  her  gain 
Is  but  the  pang  of  unpermitted  prayer. 


154 


SONNET  XL IX 


DEATH-IN-LOVE 


THERE  came  an  image  in  Life's  retinue 
That  had  Love's  wings  and  bore  his  gonfalon : 
Fair  was  the  web,  and  nobly  wrought  thereon, 
O  soul-sequestered  face,  thy  form  and  hue  ! 
Bewildering  sounds,  such  as  Spring  wakens  to, 

Shook  in  its  folds  ;  and  through  my  heart  its  power 
Sped  trackless  as  the  immemorable  hour 
When  birth's  dark  portal  groaned  and  all  was  new. 

But  a  veiled  woman  followed,  and  she  caught 
The  banner  round  its  staff,  to  furl  and  cling, — 
Then  plucked  a  feather  from  the  bearer's  wing. 

And  held  it  to  his  lips  that  stirred  it  not. 

And  said  to  me,  ''  Behold,  there  is  no  breath : 
I  and  this  Love  are  one,  and  I  am  Death." 


155 


SONNETS   L.,    LI.,    LIT.,    LIU 


WILLOWWOOD 


IS  AT  with  Love  upon  a  woodside  well, 
Leaning  across  the  water,  I  and  he ; 
Nor  ever  did  he  speak  nor  looked  at  me, 
But  touched  his  lute  wherein  was  audible 
The  certain  secret  thing  he  had  to  tell : 
Only  our  mirrored  eyes  met  silently 
In  the  low  wave  ;  and  that  sound  came  to  be 
The  passionate  voice  I  knew ;   and  my  tears  fell. 

And  at  their  fall,  his  eyes  beneath  grew  hers ; 
And  with  his  foot  and  with  his  wing-feathers 

He  swept  the  spring  that  watered  my  heart's  drouth. 
Then  the  dark  ripples  spread  to  waving  hair. 
And  as  I  stooped,  her  own  lips  rising  there 

Bubbled  with  brimming  kisses  at  my  mouth. 


156 


II 


AND  now  Love  sang :  but  his  was  such  a  song, 
So  meshed  with  half-remembrance  hard  to  free, 
As  souls  disused  in  death's  sterility 
May  sing  when  the  new  birthday  tarries  long. 
And  I  was  made  aware  of  a  dumb  throng 
That  stood  aloof,  one  form  by  every  tree, 
All  mournful  forms,  for  each  was  I  or  she. 
The  shades  of  those  our  days  that  had  no  tongue. 

They  looked  on  us,  and  knew  us  and  were  known ; 
While  fast  together,  alive  from  the  abyss. 
Clung  the  soul-wrung  implacable  close  kiss ; 
And  pity  of  self  through  all  made  broken  moan 
Which  said,  **  For  once,  for  once,  for  once  alone  !  " 
And  still  Love  sang,  and  what  he  sang  was  this  :  — 


157 


Ill 


(i  /^  YE,  all  ye  that  walk  in  Willowwood, 

V-y     That  walk  with  hollow  faces  burning  white  ; 
What  fathom-depth  of  soul-struck  widowhood, 

What  long,  what  longer  hours,  one  lifelong  night, 
Ere  ye  again,  who  so  in  vain  have  wooed 

Your  last  hope  lost,  who  so  in  vain  invite 
Your  lips  to  that  their  unforgotten  food. 

Ere  ye,  ere  ye  again  shall  see  the  light ! 

Alas  I  the  bitter  banks  in  Willowwood, 

With  tear-spurge  wan,  with  blood-wort  burning  red 
Alas  I  if  ever  such  a  pillow  could 

Steep  deep  the  soul  in  sleep  till  she  were  dead,  — 
Better  all  life  forget  her  than  this  thing. 
That  Willowwood  should  hold  her  wandering  1 " 


158 


IV 


So  sang  he :  and  as  meeting  rose  and  rose 
Together  cling  through  the  wind^s  wellaway 
Nor  change  at  once,  yet  near  the  end  of  day 
The  leaves  drop  loosened  where  the  heart-stain  glows ,- 
So  when  the  song  died  did  the  kiss  unclose ; 

And  her  face  fell  back  drowned,  and  was  as  grey 
As  its  grey  eyes ;  and  if  it  ever  may 
Meet  mine  again  I  know  not  if  Love  knows. 

Only  I  know  that  I  leaned  low  and  drank 

A  long  draught  from  the  water  where  she  sank, 

Her  breath  and  all  her  tears  and  all  her  soul : 
And  as  I  leaned,  I  know  I  felt  Love's  face 
Pressed  on  my  neck  with  moan  of  pity  and  grace. 

Till  both  our  heads  were  in  his  aureole. 


159 


SONNET  LIV 


WITHOUT    HER 


WHAT  of  her  glass  without  her?     The  blank  grey 
There  where  the  pool  is  blind  of  the  moon's  face. 
Her  dress  without  her?     The  tossed  empty  space 
Of  cloud-rack  whence  the  moon  has  passed  away. 
Her  paths  without  her?     Day's  appointed  sway 
Usurped  by  desolate  night.     Her  pillowed  place 
Without  her  !     Tears,  ah  me  !  for  love's  good  grace, 
And  cold  forgetfulness  of  night  or  day. 

What  of  the  heart  without  her?     Nay,  poor  heart, 
Of  thee  what  word  remains  ere  speech  be  still? 
A  wayfarer  by  barren  ways  and  chill. 
Steep  ways  and  weary,  without  her  thou  art, 
Where  the  long  cloud,  the  long  wood's  counterpart, 
Sheds  doubled  darkness  up  the  labouring  hill. 


1 60 


SONNET L V 


LOVE'S    FATALITY 


SWEET  Love,  —  but  oh  !  most  dread  Desire  of  Love 
Life-thwarted.     Linked  in  gyves  I  saw  them  stand, 
Love  shackled  with  Vain-longing,  hand  to  hand : 
And  one  was  eyed  as  the  blue  vault  above : 
But  hope  tempestuous  like  a  fire-cloud  hove 
r  the  other's  gaze,  even  as  in  his  whose  wand 
Vainly  all  night  with  spell-wrought  power  has  spanned 
The  unyielding  caves  of  some  deep  treasure-trove. 

Also  his  lips,  two  writhen  flakes  of  flame. 

Made  moan  :  *'Alas  O  Love,  thus  leashed  with  me  I 
Wing-footed  thou,  wing-shouldered,  once  born  free : 
And  I,  thy  cowering  self,  in  chains  grown  tame, — 
Bound  to  thy  body  and  soul,  named  with  thy  name",  — 
Life's  iron  heart,  even  Love's  Fatality." 


i6i 


SONNET  LVJ 


STILLBORN    LOVE 


THE  hour  which  might  have  been  yet  might  not  be, 
Which  man's  and  woman's  heart  conceived  and  bore 
Yet  whereof  life  was  barren,  — on  what  shore 
Bides  it  the  breaking  of  Time's  weary  sea? 
Bondchild  of  all  consummate  joys  set  free, 

It  somewhere  sighs  and  serves,  and  mute  before 
The  house  of  Love,  hears  through  the  echoing  door 
His  hours  elect  in  choral  consonancy. 

But  lo  !  what  wedded  souls  now  hand  in  hand 
Together  tread  at  last  the  immortal  strand 

With  eyes  where  burning  memory  lights  love  home? 
Lo  I  how  the  little  outcast  hour  has  turned 
And  leaped  to  them  and  in  their  faces  yearned  :  — 

**  I  am  your  child  :  O  parents,  ye  have  come  I  " 


162 


SONNETS   LVII.,    LVIIL,    LIX 


TRUE    WOMAN 


HERSELF 

TO  be  a  sweetness  more  desired  than  Spring ; 
A  bodily  beauty  more  acceptable 
Than  the  wild  rose-tree's  arch  that  crowns  the  fell ; 
To  be  an  essence  more  environing 
Than  wine's  drained  juice  ;  a  music  ravishing 
More  than  the  passionate  pulse  of  Philomel ;  — 
To  be  all  this  'neath  one  soft  bosom's  swell 
That  is  the  flower  of  life  :  —  how  strange  a  thing  I 

How  strange  a  thing  to  be  what  Man  can  know 
But  as  a  sacred  secret  I     Heaven's  own  screen 

Hides  her  soul's  purest  depth  and  loveliest  glow ; 
Closely  withheld,  as  all  things  most  unseen,  — 
The  wave-bowered  pearl,  —  the  heart-shaped  seal  of  green 

That  flecks  the  snowdrop  underneath  the  snow. 


163 


II 


HER    LOVE 

SHE  loves  him ;  for  her  infinite  soul  is  Love, 
And  he  her  lodestar.     Passion  in  her  is 
A  glass  facing  his  fire,  where  the  bright  bliss 
Is  mirrored,  and  the  heat  returned.     Yet  move 
That  glass,  a  stranger's  amorous  flame  to  prove, 
And  it  shall  turn,  by  instant  contraries. 
Ice  to  the  moon ;  while  her  pure  fire  to  his 
For  whom  it  burns,  clings  close  i'  the  heart's  alcove. 

Lo  !  they  are  one.     With  wifely  breast  to  breast 
And  circling  arms,  she  welcomes  all  command 
Of  love, — her  soul  to  answering  ardours  fann'd  : 
Yet  as  morn  springs  or  twilight  sinks  to  rest. 
Ah  I  who  shall  say  she  deems  not  loveliest 
The  hour  of  sisterly  sweet  hand-in-hand? 


164 


Ill 


HER    HEAVEN 


IF  to  grow  old  in  Heaven  is  to  grow  young, 
(As  the  Seer  saw  and  said,)  then  blest  were  he 
With  youth  for  evermore,  whose  heaven  should  be 
True  Woman,  she  whom  these  weak  notes  have  sung. 
Here  and  hereafter,  —  choir-strains  of  her  tongue,  — 
Sky-spaces  of  her  eyes,  —  sweet  signs  that  flee 
About  her  soul's  immediate  sanctuary,  — 
Were  Paradise  all  uttermost  worlds  among. 

The  sunrise  blooms  and  withers  on  the  hill 
Like  any  hillflower ;  and  the  noblest  troth 
Dies  here  to  dust.     Yet  shall  Heaven's  promise  clothe 

Even  yet  those  lovers  who  have  cherished  still 
Tljis  test  for  love  :  —  in  every  kiss  sealed  fast 
To  feel  the  first  kiss  and  forbode  the  last. 


i6S 


SONNET    LX 


LOVE'S     LAST     GIFT 


LOVE  to  his  singer  held  a  glistening  leaf,  \ 

And  said  :  **  The  rose-tree  and  the  apple-tree  < 

Have  fruits  to  vaunt  or  flowers  to  lure  the  bee ; 
And  golden  shafts  are  in  the  feathered  sheaf 
Of  the  great  harvest-marshal,  the  year's  chief,  \ 

Victorious  Summer;  aye,  and  'neath  warm  sea 
Strange  secret  grasses  lurk  inviolably 
Between  the  filtering  channels  of  sunk  reef. 

All  are  my  blooms ;  and  all  sweet  blooms  of  love 

To  thee  I  gave  while  Spring  and  Summer  sang ;  '\ 

But  Autumn  stops  to  listen,  with  some  pang  ' 

From  those  worse  things  the  wind  is  moaning  of.  \ 

Only  this  laurel  dreads  no  winter  days :  i 
Take  my  last  gift ;  thy  heart  hath  sung  my  praise." 


I 
I 


PART   II 
CHANGE   AND   FATE 


SONNE!    LXI 


TRANSFIGURED     LIFE 


AS  growth  of  form  or  momentary  glance 
In  a  child's  features  will  recall  to  mind 
The  father's  with  the  mother's  face  combined,  — 
Sweet  interchange  that  memories  still  enhance  : 
And  yet,  as  childhood's  years  and  youth's  advance, 
The  gradual  mouldings  leave  one  stamp  behind, 
Till  in  the  blended  likeness  now  we  find 
A  separate  man's  or  woman's  countenance  :  — 

So  in  the  Song,  the  singer's  Joy  and  Pain, 

Its  very  parents,  evermore  expand 
To  bid  the  passion's  fullgrown  birth  remain. 

By  Art's  transfiguring  essence  subtly  spann'd ; 

And  from  that  song-cloud  shaped  as  a  man's  hand 
There  comes  the  sound  as  of  abundant  rain. 


169 


SONNET    LXII 


THE     SONG -THROE 


BY  thine  own  tears  thy  song  must  tears  beget, 
O  Singer !  Magic  mirror  thou  hast  none 
Except  thy  manifest  heart ;  and  save  thine  own 
Anguish  or  ardour,  else  no  amulet. 
Cisterned  in  Pride,  verse  is  the  feathery  jet 
Of  soulless  air-flung  fountains  ;  nay,  more  dry 
Than  the  Dead  Sea  for  throats  that  thirst  and  sigh. 
That  song  o'er  which  no  singer's  lids  grew  wet. 

The  Song-god  —  He  the  Sun-god  —  is  no  slave 
Of  thine  :  thy  Hunter  he,  who  for  thy  soul 
Fledges  his  shaft :  to  no  august  control 

Of  thy  skilled  hand  his  quivered  store  he  gave  : 
But  if  thy  lips'  loud  cry  leap  to  his  smart, 
The  inspir'd  recoil  shall  pierce  thy  brother's  heart. 


170 


SONNET    LXIII 


THE     SOUL'S     SPHERE 


SOME  prisoned  moon  in  steep  cloud-fastnesses,  — 
Throned  queen  and  thralled  ;  some  dying  sun  whose  pyre 
Blazed  with  momentous  memorable  fire  ;  — 
Who  hath  not  yearned  and  fed  his  heart  with  these? 
Who,  sleepless,  hath  not  anguished  to  appease 
Tragical  shadow's  realm  of  sound  and  sight 

Conjectured  in  the  lamentable  night? 

Lo  I  the  soul's  sphere  of  infinite  images  ! 

What  sense  shall  count  them?  Whether  it  forecast 
The  rose-winged  hours  that  flutter  in  the  van 
Of  Love's  unquestioning  unrevealed  span,  — 

Visions  of  golden  futures  :  or  that  last 

Wild  pageant  of  the  accumulated  past 

That  clangs  and  flashes  for  a  drowning  man. 


171 


SONNET    LXIV 


INCLUSIVENESS 


THE  changing  guests,  each  in  a  different  mood, 
Sit  at  the  roadside  table  and  arise : 
And  every  life  among  them  in  likewise 
Is  a  soul's  board  set  daily  with  new  food. 
What  man  has  bent  o'er  his  son's  sleep,  to  brood 
How  that  face  shall  watch  his  when  cold  it  lies?  — 
Or  thought,  as  his  own  mother  kissed  his  eyes. 
Of  what  her  kiss  was  when  his  father  wooed? 

May  not  this  ancient  room  thou  sit'st  in  dwell 
In  separate  living  souls  for  joy  or  pain  ? 
Nay,  all  its  corners  may  be  painted  plain 

Where  Heaven  shows  pictures  of  some  life  spent  well 
And  may  be  stamped,  a  memory  all  in  vain. 

Upon  the  sight  of  lidless  eyes  in  Hell. 


172 


K 


14" 


4 
^ 


^^"'?f  l^^ii^ 


f^^" 


•s! 


SONNET    LXV 


ARDOUR     AND     MEMORY 


THE  cuckoo-throb,  the  heartbeat  of  the  Spring ; 
The  rosebud's  blush  that  leaves  it  as  it  grows 
Into  the  full-eyed  fair  unblushing  rose  ; 
The  summer  clouds  that  visit  every  wing 
With  fires  of  sunrise  and  of  sunsetting ; 

The  furtive  flickering  streams  to  light  re-born 
'Mid  airs  new-fledged  and  valorous  lusts  of  morn, 
While  all  the  daughters  of  the  daybreak  sing  :  — 

These  ardour  loves,  and  memory  :  and  when  flown 
All  joys,  and  through  dark  forest-boughs  in  flight 
The  wind  swoops  onward  brandishing  the  light, 
Even  yet  the  rose-tree's  verdure  left  alone 
Will  flush  all  ruddy  though  the  rose  be  gone ; 
With  ditties  and  with  dirges  infinite. 


173 


SONNET   LXVI 


KNOWN    IN    VAIN 


AS  two  whose  love,  first  foolish,  widening  scope. 
Knows  suddenly,  to  music  high  and  soft. 
The  Holy  of  holies ;  who  because  they  scoff'd 

Are  now  amazed  with  shame,  nor  dare  to  cope 

With  the  whole  truth  aloud,  lest  heaven  should  ope ; 
Yet,  at  their  meetings,  laugh  not  as  they  laugh'd 
In  speech  ;  nor  speak,  at  length  ;  but  sitting  oft 

Together,  within  hopeless  sight  of  hope 

For  hours  are  silent :  —  So  it  happeneth 

When  Work  and  Will  awake  too  late,  to  gaze 

After  their  life  sailed  by,  and  hold  their  breath. 

Ah  !  who  shall  dare  to  search  through  what  sad  maze 
Thenceforth  their  incommunicable  ways 

Follow  the  desultory  feet  of  Death  ? 


174 


SONNET  LXVII 


THE    HEART    OF    THE    NIGHT 


FROM  child  to  youth ;  from  youth  to  arduous  man 
From  lethargy  to  fever  of  the  heart ; 
From  faithful  life  to  dream-dowered  days  apart ; 
From  trust  to  doubt ;  from  doubt  to  brink  of  ban  ;  — 
Thus  much  of  change  in  one  swift  cycle  ran 

Till  now.     Alas,  the  soul !  —  how  soon  must  she 
Accept  her  primal  immortality, — 
The  flesh  resume  its  dust  whence  it  began? 

O  Lord  of  work  and  peace  !  O  Lord  of  life  ! 

O  Lord,  the  awful  Lord  of  will !  though  late, 
.    Even  yet  renew  this  soul  with  duteous  breath : 
That  when  the  peace  is  garnered  in  from  strife, 
The  work  retrieved,  the  will  regenerate, 
This  soul  may  see  thy  face,  O  Lord  of  death  ! 


175 


SONNET  LXVIII 


THE    LANDMARK 


WAS  that  the  landmark?  What,  —  the  foolish  well 
Whose  wave,  low  down,  I  did  not  stoop  to  drink. 
But  sat  and  flung  the  pebbles  from  its  brink 
In  sport  to  send  its  imaged  skies  pell-mell, 
(And  mine  own  image,  had  I  noted  well !)  — 
Was  that  my  point  of  turning  ?  —  I  had  thought 
The  stations  of  my  course  should  rise  unsought. 
As  altar-stone  or  ensigned  citadel. 

But  lo  I  the  path  is  missed,  I  must  go  back, 

And  thirst  to  drink  when  next  I  reach  the  spring 

Which  once  I  stained,  which  since  may  have  grown  black. 
Yet  though  no  light  be  left  nor  bird  now  sing 
As  here  I  turn,  I'll  thank  God,  hastening. 

That  the  same  goal  is  still  on  the  same  track. 


176 


SONNET   LXIX 


A    DARK    DAY 


THE  gloom  that  breathes  upon  me  with  these  airs 
Is  like  the  drops  which  strike  the  traveller's  brow 
Who  knows  not,  darkling,  if  they  bring  him  now 
Fresh  storm,  or  be  old  rain  the  covert  bears. 
Ah  !  bodes  this  hour  some  harvest  of  new  tares, 
Or  hath  but  memory  of  the  day  whose  plough 
Sowed  hunger  once,  —  the  night  at  length  when  thou, 
O  prayer  found  vain,  didst  fall  from  out  my  prayers? 

How  prickly  were  the  growths  which  yet  how  smooth. 
Along  the  hedgerows  of  this  journey  shed, 

Lie  by  Time's  grace  till  night  and  sleep  may  soothe  ! 
Even  as  the  thistledown  from  pathsides  dead 

Gleaned  by  a  girl  in  autumns  of  her  youth, 

Which  one  new  year  makes  soft  her  marriage-bed. 


177 


SONNET  LXX 


OL  ryy 


AUTUMN    IDLENESS 


HIS  sunlight  shames  November  where  he  grieves  ^ 
In  dead  red  leaves,  and  will  not  let  him  shun  A 
The  day,  though  bough  with  bough  be  over-run.  Ir 
But  with  a  blessing  every  glade  receives    ^'"^ 
High  salutation  ;  while  from  hillock-eaves  ^ 

The  deer  gaze  calling,  dappled  white  and  dun,  /J 
As  if,  being  foresters  of  old,  the  sun  .<? 
Had  marked  them  with  the  shade  of  forest-leaves.  ^ 

Here  dawn  to-day  unveiled  her  magic  glass ;   ^ 

Here  noon  now  gives  the  thirst  and  takes  the  dew ;  ^ 

Till  eve  bring  rest  when  other  good  things  pass.  < 
And  here  the  lost  hours  the  lost  hours  renew  -e^ 

While  I  still  lead  my  shadow  o'er  the  grass,   / 
Nor  know,  for  longing,  that  which  I  should  do.  ^ 


178 


SONNET  LXXI 


THE    HILL    SUMMIT 


THIS  feast-day  of  the  sun,  his  altar  there 
In  the  broad  west  has  blazed  for  vesper-song ; 
And  I  have  loitered  in  the  vale  too  long 
And  gaze  now  a  belated  worshipper. 
Yet  may  I  not  forget  that  I  was  'ware, 
So  journeying,  of  his  face  at  intervals 
Transfigured  where  the  fringed  horizon  falls,  — 
A  fiery  bush  with  coruscating  hair. 

And  now  that  I  have  climbed  and  won  this  height, 
I  must  tread  downward  through  the  sloping  shade 

And  travel  the  bewildered  tracks  till  night. 
Yet  for  this  hour  I  still  may  here  be  stayed 
And  see  the  gold  air  and  the  silver  fade 

And  the  last  bird  fly  into  the  last  light. 


179 


SONNETS    LXXIL,    LXXIII.,   LXXIV 


THE    CHOICE 


EAT  thou  and  drink ;  to-morrow  thou  shalt  die. 
Surely  the  earth,  that's  wise  being  very  old, 
Needs  not  our  help.  Then  loose  me,  love,  and  hold 
Thy  sultry  hair  up  from  my  face  ;  that  I 
May  pour  for  thee  this  yellow  wine,  brim-high. 
Till  round  the  glass  thy  fingers  glow  like  gold. 
We'll  drown  all  hours :  thy  song,  while  hours  are  toU'd, 
Shall  leap,  as  fountains  veil  the  changing  sky. 

Now  kiss,  and  think  that  there  are  really  those. 
My  own  high-bosomed  beauty,  who  increase 

Vain  gold,  vain  lore,  and  yet  might  choose  our  way  I 
Through  many  days  they  toil ;  then  comes  a  day 
They  die  not,  —  never  having  lived,  —  but  cease ; 
And  round  their  narrow  lips  the  mould  falls  close. 


1 80 


II 


WATCH  thou  and  fear ;  to-morrow  thou  shalt  die. 
Or  art  thou  sure  thou  shalt  have  time  for  death? 
Is  not  the  day  which  God's  word  promiseth 
To  come  man  knows  not  when?     In  yonder  sky, 
Now  while  we  speak,  the  sun  speeds  forth  :  can  I 
Or  thou  assure  him  of  his  goal  ?  God's  breath 
Even  at  this  moment  haply  quickeneth 
The  air  to  a  flame ;  till  spirits,  always  nigh 
Though  screened  and  hid,  shall  walk  the  daylight  here. 
And  dost  thou  prate  of  all  that  man  shall  do? 
Canst  thou,  who  hast  but  plagues,  presume  to  be 
Glad  in  his  gladness  that  comes  after  thee  ? 
Will  his  strength  slay  thy  worm  in  Hell  ?     Go  to  : 
Cover  thy  countenance,  and  watch,  and  fear. 


i8i 


Ill 


THINK  thou  and  act ;  to-morrow  thou  shalt  die. 
Outstretched  in  the  sun's  warmth  upon  the  shore, 
Thou  say'st :   **  Man's  measured  path  is  all  gone  o'er  : 
Up  all  his  years,  steeply,  with  strain  and  sigh, 
Man  clomb  until  he  touched  the  truth ;  and  I, 
Even  I,  am  he  whom  it  was  destined  for." 
How  should  this  be?  Art  thou  then  so  much  more 
Than  they  who  sowed,  that  thou  shouldst  reap  thereby  ? 

Nay,  come  up  hither.      From  this  wave-washed  mound 
Unto  the  furthest  flood-brim  look  with  me  ; 

Then  reach  on  with  thy  thought  till  it  be  drown'd. 
Miles  and  miles  distant  though  the  grey  line  be. 

And  though  thy  soul  sail  leagues  and  leagues  beyond, — 
Still,  leagues  beyond  those  leagues,  there  is  more  sea. 


182 


SONNETS    LXXV.,    LXXVI.,    LXXVII 


OLD    AND    NEW    ART 


ST.    LUKE    THE    PAINTER 


GIVE  honour  unto  Luke  Evangelist ; 
For  he  it  was  (the  aged  legends  say) 
Who  first  taught  Art  to  fold  her  hands  and  pray.       A^  ^   ^  ^*^     c^tsri 
Scarcely  at  once  she  dared  to  rend  the  mist 
Of  devious  symbols  :  but  soon  having  wist 

How  sky-breadth  and  field-silence  and  this  day 
Are  symbols  also  in  some  deeper  way, 
She  looked  through  these  to  God  and  was  God's  priest. 

And  if,  past  noon,  her  toil  began  to  irk. 

And  she  sought  talismans,  and  turned  in  vain 
To  soulless  self-reflections  of  man's  skill, — 
Yet  now,  in  this  the  twilight,  she  might  still 
Kneel  in  the  latter  grass  to  pray  again. 
Ere  the  night  cometh  and  she  may  not  work. 


183 


II 

Q\ys^^    not  as  these 


^  ^  T  AM  not  as  these  are,"  the  poet  saith 

1     In  youth's  pride,  and  the  painter,  among  men 
At  bay,  where  never  pencil  comes  nor  pen. 

And  shut  about  with  his  own  frozen  breath. 

To  others,  for  whom  only  rhyme  wins  faith 
As  poets,  —  only  paint  as  painters,  —  then 
He  turns  in  the  cold  silence ;   and  again 

Shrinking,  **  I  am  not  as  these  are,"  he  saith. 

And  say  that  this  is  so,  what  follows  it? 

For  were  thine  eyes  set  backwards  in  thine  head, 
Such  words  were  well ;  but  they  see  on,  and  far. 
Unto  the  lights  of  the  great  Past,  new-lit 

Fair  for  the  Future's  track,  look  thou  instead,  — 
Say  thou  instead,  **  I  am  not  as  tkese  are." 


184 


Ill 


THE    HUSBANDMEN 

THOUGH  Godj  as  one  that  is  an  householder, 
Called  these  to  labour  in  his  vineyard  first, 
Before  the  husk  of  darkness  was  well  burst 
Bidding  them  grope  their  way  out  and  bestir, 
(Who,  questioned  of  their  wages,  answered,  **  Sir, 
Unto  each  man  a  penny : ")  though  the  worst 
Burthen  of  heat  was  theirs  and  the  dry  thirst : 
Though  God  hath  since  found  none  such  as  these  were 
To  do  their  work  like  them  :  —  Because  of  this 
Stand  not  ye  idle  in  the  market-place. 
Which  of  ye  knoweth  he  is  not  that  last 
Who  may  be  first  by  faith  and  will?  —  yea,  his 
The  hand  which  after  the  appointed  days 
And  hours  shall  give  a  Future  to  their  Past? 


185 


SONNET    LX XVIII 


SOUL'S    BEAUTY 


UNDER  the  arch  of  Life,  where  love  and  death, 
Terror  and  mystery,  guard  her  shrine,  I  saw 
Beauty  enthroned  ;  and  though  her  gaze  struck  awe, 
I  drew  it  in  as  simply  as  my  breath. 
Hers  are  the  eyes  which,  over  and  beneath, 
The  sky  and  sea  bend  on  thee,  —  which  can  draw^ 
By  sea  or  sky  or  woman,  to  one  law, 
The  allotted  bondman  of  her  palm  and  wreath. 

This  is  that  Lady  Beauty,  in  whose  praise 

Thy  voice  and  hand  shake  still,  —  long  known  to  thee 
By  flying  hair  and  fluttering  hem,  —  the  beat 
Following  her  daily  of  thy  heart  and  feet, 
How  passionately  and  irretrievably. 
In  what  fond  flight,  how  many  ways  and  days  I 


i86 


SONNET    LXXIX 


BODY'S    BEAUTY 


OF  Adam's  first  wife,  Lilith,  it  is  told 
(the  witch  he  loved  before  the  gift  of  Eve,) 
That,  ere  the  snake's,  her  sweet  tongue  could  deceive, 
And  her  enchanted  hair  was  the  first  gold. 
And  still  she  sits,  young  while  the  earth  is  old. 
And,  subtly  of  herself  contemplative, 
Draws  men  to  watch  the  bright  web  she  can  weave. 
Till  heart  and  body  and  life  are  in  its  hold. 

The  rose  and  poppy  are  her  flowers ;  for  where 
Is  he  not  found,  O  Lilith,  whom  shed  scent 

And  soft-shed  kisses  and  soft  sleep  shall  snare  ? 
Lo  !  as  that  youth's  eyes  burned  at  thine,  so  went 
Thy  spell  through  him,  and  left  his  straight  neck  bent 

And  round  his  heart  one  strangling  golden  hair. 


187 


SONNET LXXX 


THE    MONOCHORD 


IS  it  this  sky's  vast  vault  or  ocean's  sound 
That  is  Life's  self  and  draws  my  life  from  me, 
And  by  instinct  ineffable  decree 
Holds  my  breath  quailing  on  the  bitter  bound? 
Nay,  is  it  Life  or  Death,  thus  thunder-crown'd. 
That  'mid  the  tide  of  all  emergency 
Now  notes  my  separate  wave,  and  to  what  sea 
Its  difficult  eddies  labour  in  the  ground? 

Oh  I  what  is  this  that  knows  the  road  I  came, 

The  flame  turned  cloud,  the  cloud  returned  to  flame, 

The  lifted  shifted  steeps  and  all  the  way  ?  — 
That  draws  round  me  at  last  this  wind- warm  space, 
And  in  regenerate  rapture  turns  my  face 

Upon  the  devious  coverts  of  dismay  ? 


i88 


SONNET  LXXXI 


FROM    DAWN    TO    NOON 


AS  the  child  knows  not  if  his  mother's  face 
Be  fair ;  nor  of  his  elders  yet  can  deem 
What  each  most  is ;  but  as  of  hill  or  stream 
At  dawn,  all  glimmering  life  surrounds  his  place : 
Who  yet,  tow'rd  noon  of  his  half-weary  race, 
Pausing  awhile  beneath  the  high  sun-beam 
And  gazing  steadily  back,  —  as  through  a  dream. 
In  things  long  past  new  features  now  can  trace :  — 

Even  so  the  thought  that  is  at  length  fullgrown 
Turns  back  to  note  the  sun-smit  paths,  all  grey 

And  marvellous  once,  where  first  it  walked  alone ; 
And  haply  doubts,  amid  the  unblenching  day. 
Which  most  or  least  impelled  its  onward  way,  — 

Those  unknown  things  or  these  things  overknown. 


189 


SONNET  LXXXII 


MEMORIAL    THRESHOLDS 


WHAT  place  so  strange,  — though  unrevealed  snow 
With  unimaginable  fires  arise 
At  the  earth's  end,  —  what  passion  of  surprise 
Like  frost-bound  fire-girt  scenes  of  long  ago? 
Lo  !  this  is  none  but  I  this  hour ;  and  lo  ! 
This  is  the  very  place  which  to  mine  eyes 
Those  mortal  hours  in  vain  immortalize, 
'Mid  hurrying  crowds,  with  what  alone  I  know. 

City,  of  thine  a  single  simple  door, 

By  some  new  Power  reduplicate,  must  be 
Even  yet  my  life-porch  in  eternity, 
Even  with  one  presence  filled,  as  once  of  yore : 
Or  mocking  winds  whirl  round  a  chaff-strown  floor 
Thee  and  thy  years  and  these  my  words  and  me. 


190 


SONNET  LXXXIII 


HOARDED    JOY 


I  SAID  :  **  Nay,  pluck  not,  —let  the  first  fruit  be  : 
Even  as  thou  sayest,  it  is  sweet  and  red. 
But  let  it  ripen  still.     The  tree's  bent  head 
Sees  in  the  stream  its  own  fecundity 
And  bides  the  day  of  fulness.     Shall  not  we 
At  the  sun's  hour  that  day  possess  the  shade, 
And  claim  our  fruit  before  its  ripeness  fade, 
And  eat  it  from  the  branch  and  praise  the  tree?" 

I  say  :   *'Alas  !  our  fruit  hath  wooed  the  sun 

Too  long,  —  'tis  fallen  and  floats  adown  the  stream. 

Lo,  the  last  clusters  !     Pluck  them  every  one, 
And  let  us  sup  with  summer;  ere  the  gleam 

Of  autumn  set  the  year's  pent  sorrow  free. 

And  the  woods  wail  like  echoes  from  the  sea." 


191 


SONNET   LXXXIV 


BARREN    SPRING 


SO  now  the  changed  year's  turning  wheel  returns : 
And  as  a  girl  sails  balanced  in  the  wind, 
And  now  before  and  now  again  behind 
Stoops  as  it  swoops,  with  cheek  that  laughs  and  burns,  — 
So  Spring  comes  merry  towards  me  now,  but  earns 
No  answering  smile  from  me,  whose  life  is  twin'd 
With  the  dead  boughs  that  winter  still  must  bind, 
And  whom  to-day  the  Spring  no  more  concerns. 

Behold,  this  crocus  is  a  withering  flame ; 

This  snowdrop,  snow  ;  this  apple-blossom's  part 
To  breed  the  fruit  that  breeds  the  serpent's  art. 

Nay,  for  these  Spring-flowers,  turn  thy  face  from  them, 

Nor  gaze  till  on  the  year's  last  lily-stem 

The  white  cup  shrivels  round  the  golden  heart. 


192 


SONNE!    LXXXV 


FAREWELL    TO    THE    GLEN 


SWEET  stream-fed  glen,  why  say  '*  farewell  "  to  thee 
Who  far'st  so  well  and  find'st  for  ever  smooth 
The  brow  of  Time  where  man  may  read  no  ruth  ? 
Nay,  do  thou  rather  say  '*  farewell "  to  me, 
Who  now  fare  forth  in  bitterer  fantasy 

Than  erst  was  mine  where  other  shade  might  soothe 
By  other  streams,  what  while  in  fragrant  youth 
The  bliss  of  being  sad  made  melancholy. 

And  yet,  farewell !     For  better  shalt  thou  fare 
When  children  bathe  sweet  faces  in  thy  flow 

And  happy  lovers  blend  sweet  shadows  there 
In  hours  to  come,  than  when  an  hour  ago 

Thine  echoes  had  but  one  man's  sighs  to  bear 

And  thy  trees  whispered  what  he  feared  to  know. 


193 


V 


SONNET  LXXXVI 


VAIN    VIRTUES 


WHAT  is  the  sorriest  thing  that  enters  Hell? 
None  of  the  sins,  — but  this  and  that  fair  deed 
Which  a  soul's  sin  at  length  could  supersede. 
These  yet  are  virgins,  whom  death's  timely  knell 
Might  once  have  sainted ;  whom  the  fiends  compel 
Together  now,  in  snake-bound  shuddering  sheaves 
Of  anguish,  while  the  scorching  bridegroom  leaves 
Their  refuse  maidenhood  abominable. 

Night  sucks  them  down,  the  garbage  of  the  pit. 
Whose  names,  half  entered  in  the  book  of  Life, 
Were  God's  desire  at  noon.     And  as  their  hair 
And  eyes  sink  last,  the  Torturer  deigns  no  whit 
To  gaze,  but,  yearning,  waits  his  worthier  wife, 
The  Sin  still  blithe  on  earth  that  sent  them  there. 


94 


SONNET  LXXXVII 


LOST    DAYS 


THE  lost  days  of  my  life  until  to-day, 
What  were  they,  could  I  see  them  on  the  street 
Lie  as  they  fell  ?     Would  they  be  ears  of  wheat 
Sown  once  for  food  but  trodden  into  clay? 
Or  golden  coins  squandered  and  still  to  pay  ? 
Or  drops  of  blood  dabbling  the  guilty  feet? 
Or  such  spilt  water  as  in  dreams  must  cheat 
The  throats  of  men  in  Hell,  who  thirst  alway? 

I  do  not  see  them  here  ;  but  after  death 
God  knows  I  know  the  faces  I  shall  see, 

Each  one  a  murdered  self,  with  low  last  breath. 
**  I  am  thyself,  —  what  hast  thou  done  to  me?  " 

**And  I  —  and  I  —  thyself,"  (lo  !  each  one  saith,) 
**And  thou  thyself  to  all  eternity  !  " 


195 


5  O NNB  T    LXXX  VIII 


DEATH'S    SONGSTERS 


WHEN  first  that  horse,  within  whose  populous  womb 
The  birth  was  death,  o'ershadowed  Troy  with  fate, 
Her  elders,  dubious  of  its  Grecian  freight. 
Brought  Helen  there  to  sing  the  songs  of  home ; 
She  whispered,    ''Friends,  I  am  alone;  come,  come!" 
Then,  crouched  within,  Ulysses  waxed  afraid. 
And  on  his  comrades'  quivering  mouths  he  laid 
His  hands,  and  held  them  till  the  voice  was  dumb. 

The  same  was  he  who,  lashed  to  his  own  mast. 

There  where  the  sea-flowers  screen  the  charnel-caves, 

Beside  the  sirens'  singing  island  pass'd. 

Till  sweetness  failed  along  the  inveterate  waves.  .  .  . 

Say,  soul,  —  are  songs  of  Death  no  heaven  to  thee, 

Nor  shames  her  lip  the  cheek  of  Victory? 


196 


SONNET LXXXIX 


HERO'S    LAMP^ 


THAT  lamp  thou  filFst  in  Eros'  name  to-night, 
O  Hero,  shall  the  Sestian  augurs  take 
To-morrow,  and  for  drowned  Leander's  sake 
To  Anteros  its  fireless  lip  shall  plight. 
Aye,  waft  the  unspoken  vow :  yet  dawn's  first  light 
On  ebbing  storm  and  life  twice  ebb'd  must  break ; 
While  'neath  no  sunrise,  by  the  Avernian  Lake, 
Lo  where  Love  walks,  Death's  pallid  neophyte. 

That  lamp  within  Anteros'  shadowy  shrine 
Shall  stand  unlit  (for  so  the  gods  decree) 
Till  some  one  man  the  happy  issue  see 
Of  a  life's  love,  and  bid  its  flame  to  shine  : 
Which  still  may  rest  unfir'd ;  for,  theirs  or  thine, 
O  brother,  what  brought  love  to  them  or  thee  ? 


*  After  the  deaths  of  Leander  and  of  Hero,  the  signal-lamp  was  dedi- 
cated to  Anteros,  with  the  edict  that  no  man  should  light  it  unless  his  love 
had  proved  fortunate. 


197 


SONNET  XC 


THE    TREES    OF    THE    GARDEN 


YE  who  have  passed  Death's  haggard  hills ;  and  ye 
Whom  trees  that  knew  your  sires  shall  cease  to  know 
And  still  stand  silent:  —  is  it  all  a  show, — 
A  wisp  that  laughs  upon  the  wall?  —  decree 
Of  some  inexorable  supremacy 

Which  ever,  as  man  strains  his  blind  surmise 
From  depth  to  ominous  depth,  looks  past  his  eyes, 
Sphinx-faced  with  unabashed  augury? 

Nay,  rather  question  the  Earth's  self.     Invoke 
The  storm-felled  forest-trees  moss-grown  to-day 
Whose  roots  are  hillocks  where  the  children  play ; 

Or  ask  the  silver  sapling  'neath  what  yoke 

Those  stars,  his  spray-crown's  clustering  gems,  shall  wage 
Their  journey  still  when  his  boughs  shrink  with  age. 


198 


SONNET   XCI 


"RETRO    ME,    SATHANA! 


GET  thee  behind  me.     Even  as,  heavy-curled, 
Stooping  against  the  wind,  a  charioteer 

Is  snatched  from  out  his  chariot  by  the  hair, 
So  shall  Time  be ;  and  as  the  void  car,  hurled 
Abroad  by  reinless  steeds,  even  so  the  world : 

Yea,  even  as  chariot-dust  upon  the  air, 

It  shall  be  sought  and  not  found  anywhere. 
Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan.     Oft  unfurled. 
Thy  perilous  wings  can  beat  and  break  like  lath 

Much  mightiness  of  men  to  win  thee  praise. 

Leave  these  weak  feet  to  tread  in  narrow  ways. 
Thou  still,  upon  the  broad  vine-sheltered  path, 
Mayst  wait  the  turning  of  the  phials  of  wrath 

For  certain  years,  for  certain  months  and  days. 


199 


SONNET  XCII 


LOST    ON    BOTH    SIDES 


AS  when  two  men  have  loved  a  woman  well, 
Each  hating  each,  through  Love's  and  Death's  deceit; 
Since  not  for  either  this  stark  marriage-sheet 
And  the  long  pauses  of  this  wedding-bell ; 
Yet  o'er  her  grave  the  night  and  day  dispel 
At  last  their  feud  forlorn,  with  cold  and  heat ; 
Nor  other  than  dear  friends  to  death  may  fleet 
The  two  lives  left  that  most  of  her  can  tell :  — 

So  separate  hopes,  which  in  a  soul  had  wooed 

The  one  same  Peace,  strove  with  each  other  long, 
And  Peace  before  their  faces  perished  since : 
So  through  that  soul,  in  restless  brotherhood. 
They  roam  together  now,  and  wind  among 
Its  bye-streets,  knocking  at  the  dusty  inns. 


200 


SONNETS   XCIII.,    XCIV 


THE    SUN'S    SHAME 


BEHOLDING  youth  and  hope  in  mockery  caught 
From  life  ;   and  mocking  pulses  that  remain 

When  the  souFs  death  of  bodily  death  is  fain ; 
Honour  unknown,  and  honour  known  unsought ; 
And  penury's  sedulous  self-torturing  thought 

On  gold,  whose  master  therewith  buys  his  bane ; 

And  longed-for  woman  longing  all  in  vain 
For  lonely  man  with  love's  desire  distraught ; 
And  wealth,  and  strength,  and  power,  and  pleasantness, 

Given  unto  bodies  of  whose  souls  men  say. 

None  poor  and  weak,  slavish  and  foul,  as  they :  — 
Beholding  these  things,  I  behold  no  less 
The  blushing  morn  and  blushing  eve  confess 

The  shame  that  loads  the  intolerable  day. 


20I 


II 


As  some  true  chief  of  men,  bowed  down  with  stress 
Of  life's  disastrous  eld,  on  blossoming  youth 
May  gaze,  and  murmur  with  self-pity  and  ruth, — 
**  Might  I  thy  fruitless  treasure  but  possess, 
Such  blessing  of  mine  all  coming  years  should  bless  ;  "  — 
Then  sends  one  sigh  forth  to  the  unknown  goal, 
And  bitterly  feels  breathe  against  his  soul 
The  hour  swift-winged  of  nearer  nothingness  :  — 

Even  so  the  World's  grey  Soul  to  the  green  World 
Perchance  one  hour  must  cry  :  **  Woe's  me,  for  whom 
Inveteracy  of  ill  portends  the  doom,  — 

Whose  heart's  old  fire  in  shadow  of  shame  is  furl'd : 
While  thou  even  as  of  yore  art  journeying. 
All  soulless  now,  yet  merry  with  the  Spring  !  " 


202 


SONNET   XCV 


MICHELANGELO'S    KISS 


GREAT  Michelangelo,  with  age  grown  bleak 
And  uttermost  labours,  having  once  o'ersaid 
All  grievous  memories  on  his  long  life  shed, 
This  worst  regret  to  one  true  heart  could  speak ;  — 
That  when,  with  sorrowing  love  and  reverence  meek. 
He  stooped  o'er  sweet  Colonna's  dying  bed. 
His  Muse  and  dominant  Lady,  spirit-wed,  — 
Her  hand  he  kissed,  but  not  her  brow  or  cheek. 

O  Buonarruoti,  —  good  at  Art's  fire-wheels 
To  urge  her  chariot !  —  even  thus  the  Soul, 
Touching  at  length  some  sorely-chastened  goal, 

Earns  oftenest  but  a  little  :  her  appeals 

Were  deep  and  mute,  —  lowly  her  claim.     Let  be  : 
What  holds  for  her  Death's  garner?     And  for  thee? 


203 


SONNET  XCVI 


THE    VASE    OF    LIFE 


AROUND  the  vase  of  Life  at  your  slow  pace 
He  has  not  crept,  but  turned  it  with  his  hands, 
And  all  its  sides  already  understands. 
There,  girt,  one  breathes  alert  for  some  great  race ; 
Whose  road  runs  far  by  sands  and  fruitful  space ; 

Who  laughs,  yet  through  the  jolly  throng  has  pass'd ; 
Who  weeps,  nor  stays  for  weeping ;  who  at  last, 
A  youth,  stands  somewhere  crowned,  with  silent  face. 

And  he  has  filled  this  vase  with  wine  for  blood. 
With  blood  for  tears,  with  spice  for  burning  vow. 
With  watered  flowers  for  buried  love  most  fit ; 
And  would  have  cast  it  shattered  to  the  flood, 

Yet  in  Fate's  name  has  kept  it  whole ;  which  now 
Stands  empty  till  his  ashes  fall  in  it. 


204 


SONNET  XC  VII 


LIFE    THE    BELOVED 


AS  thy  friend's  face,  with  shadow  of  soul  o'erspread, 
Somewhile  unto  thy  sight  perchance  hath  been 
Ghastly  and  strange,  yet  never  so  is  seen 
In  thought,  but  to  all  fortunate  favour  wed ; 
As  thy  love's  death-bound  features  never  dead 
To  memory's  glass  return,  but  contravene 
Frail  fugitive  days,  and  alway  keep,  I  ween, 
Than  all  new  life  a  livelier  lovelihead :  — 

So  Life  herself,  thy  spirit's  friend  and  love. 
Even  still  as  Spring's  authentic  harbinger 
Glows  with  fresh  hours  for  hope  to  glorify ; 
Though  pale  she  lay  when  in  the  winter  grove 
Her  funeral  flowers  were  snow-flakes  shed  on  her 
And  the  red  wings  of  frost-fire  rent  the  sky. 


205 


SONNET  XCVIII 


A   SUPERSCRIPTION 


LOOK  in  my  face ;  my  name  is  Might-have-been ; 
I  am  also  called  No-more,  Too-late,  Farewell ; 
Unto  thine  ear  I  hold  the  dead-sea  shell 
Cast  up  thy  Life's  foam-fretted  feet  between ; 
Unto  thine  eyes  the  glass  where  that  is  seen 

Which  had  Life's  form  and  Love's,  but  by  my  spell 
Is  now  a  shaken  shadow  intolerable. 
Of  ultimate  things  unuttered  the  frail  screen. 

Mark  me,  how  still  I  am  !  But  should  there  dart 
One  moment  through  thy  soul  the  soft  surprise 
Of  that  winged  Peace  which  lulls  the  breath  of  sighs, - 

Then  shalt  thou  see  me  smile,  and  turn  apart 

Thy  visage  to  mine  ambush  at  thy  heart 
Sleepless  with  cold  commemorative  eyes. 


206 


SONNET  XCIX 


HE   AND    I 


WHENCE  came  his  feet  into  my  field,  and  why  ? 
How  is  it  that  he  sees  it  all  so  drear? 
How  do  I  see  his  seeing,  and  how  hear 
The  name  his  bitter  silence  knows  it  by? 
This  was  the  little  fold  of  separate  sky 

Whose  pasturing  clouds  in  the  soul's  atmosphere 
Drew  living  light  from  one  continual  year : 
How  should  he  find  it  lifeless?     He,  or  I? 

Lo  I  this  new  Self  now  wanders  round  my  field. 
With  plaints  for  every  flower,  and  for  each  tree 
A  moan,  the  sighing  wind's  auxiliary : 
And  o'er  sweet  waters  of  my  life,  that  yield 
Unto  his  lips  no  draught  but  tears  unseal'd, 
Even  in  my  place  he  weeps.     Even  I,  not  he. 


207 


SONNETS    C,    CI 


NEWBORN    DEATH 


TO-DAY  Death  seems  to  me  an  infant  child 
Which  her  worn  mother  Life  upon  my  knee 
Has  set  to  grow  my -friend  and  play  with  me ; 
If  haply  so  my  heart  might  be  beguiPd 
To  find  no  terrors  in  a  face  so  mild, — 
If  haply  so  my  weary  heart  might  be 
Unto  the  newborn  milky  eyes  of  thee, 
O  Death,  before  resentment  reconcil'd. 

How  long,  O  Death?  And  shall  thy  feet  depart 
Still  a  young  child's  with  mine,  or  wilt  thou  stand 

Fullgrown  the  helpful  daughter  of  my  heart,  ^ 

What  time  with  thee  indeed  I  reach  the  strand 

Of  the  pale  wave  which  knows  thee  what  thou  art. 
And  drink  it  in  the  hollow  of  thy  hand  ? 


208  \ 


II 


AND  thou,  O  Life,  the  lady  of  all  bliss, 
With  whom,  when  our  first  heart  beat  full  and  fast, 
I  wandered  till  the  haunts  of  men  were  pass'd. 
And  in  fair  places  found  all  bowers  amiss 
Till  only  woods  and  waves  might  hear  our  kiss, 

While  to  the  winds  all  thought  of  Death  we  cast : — 
Ah,  Life  !  and  must  I  have  from  thee  at  last 
No  smile  to  greet  me  and  no  babe  but  this? 

Lo  !  Love,  the  child  once  ours ;  and  Song,  whose  hair 
Blew  like  a  flame  and  blossomed  like  a  wreath ; 

And  Art,  whose  eyes  were  worlds  by  God  found  fair ; 
These  o'er  the  book  of  Nature  mixed  their  breath 

With  neck-twined  arms,  as  oft  we  watched  them  there : 
And  did  these  die  that  thou  mightst  bear  me  Death  ? 

'  /•. 


209 


SONNET    CII 


THE   ONE   HOPE 


WHEN  all  desire  at  last  and  all  regret 
Go  hand  in  hand  to  death,  and  all  is  vain, 
What  shall  assuage  the  unforgotten  pain 
And  teach  the  unforgetful  to  forget? 
Shall  Peace  be  still  a  sunk  stream  long  unmet, — 
Or  may  the  soul  at  once  in  a  green  plain 
Stoop  through  the  spray  of  some  sweet  life-fountain 
And  cull  the  dew-drenched  flowering  amulet? 

Ah  !  when  the  wan  soul  in  that  golden  air 
Between  the  scriptured  petals  softly  blown 
Peers  breathless  for  the  gift  of  grace  unknown, — 
Ah  !  let  none  other  written  spell  soe'er 
But  only  the  one  Hope's  one  name  be  there, — 
Not  less  nor  more,  but  even  that  word  alone. 


2IO 


LYRICS 
&c. 


SOOTHSAY 


LET  no  man  ask  thee  of  anything 
Not  yearborn  between  Spring  and  Spring. 
More  of  all  worlds  than  he  can  know, 
Each  day  the  single  sun  doth  show. 
A  trustier  gloss  than  thou  canst  give 
From  all  wise  scrolls  demonstrative, 
The  sea  doth  sigh  and  the  wind  sing. 

Let  no  man  awe  thee  on  any  height 
Of  earthly  kingship's  mouldering  might. 
The  dust  his  heel  holds  meet  for  thy  brow 
Hath  all  of  it  been  what  both  are  now ; 
And  thou  and  he  may  plague  together 
A  beggar's  eyes  in  some  dusty  weather 
When  none  that  is  now  knows  sound  or  sight. 

Crave  thou  no  dower  of  earthly  things 
Unworthy  Hope's  imaginings. 
To  have  brought  true  birth  of  Song  to  be 
And  to  have  won  hearts  to  Poesy, 

213 


SOOTHSAY 

Or  anywhere  in  the  sun  or  rain 

To  have  loved  and  been  beloved  again, 

Is  loftiest  reach  of  Hope's  bright  wings. 

The  wild  waifs  cast  up  by  the  sea 

Are  diverse  ever  seasonably. 

Even  so  the  soul-tides  still  may  land 

A  different  drift  upon  the  sand. 

But  one  the  sea  is  evermore : 

And  one  be  still,  'twixt  shore  and  shore, 

As  the  sea's  life,  thy  soul  in  thee. 

Say,  hast  thou  pride?     How  then  may  fit 
Thy  mood  with  flatterers'  silk-spun  wit? 
Haply  the  sweet  voice  lifts  thy  crest, 
A  breeze  of  fame  made  manifest. 
Nay,  but  then  chaf'st  at  flattery?     Pause  : 
Be  sure  thy  wrath  is  not  because 
It  makes  thee  feel  thou  lovest  it. 


Let  thy  soul  strive  that  still  the  same 

Be  early  friendship's  sacred  flame. 

The  affinities  have  strongest  part 

In  youth,  and  draw  men  heart  to  heart : 

As  life  wears  on  and  finds  no  rest, 

The  individual  in  each  breast 

Is  tyrannous  to  sunder  them. 

214 


SOOTHSAY 

In  the  life-drama's  stern  cue-call, 

A  friend's  a  part  well-prized  by  all : 

And  if  thou  meet  an  enemy, 

What  art  thou  that  none  such  should  be? 

Even  so  :  but  if  the  two  parts  run 

Into  each  other  and  grow  one. 

Then  comes  the  curtain's  cue  to  fall. 

Whate'er  by  other's  need  is  claimed 

More  than  by  thine,  — to  him  unblamed 

Resign  it :  and  if  he  should  hold 

What  more  than  he  thou  lack'st,  bread,  gold. 

Or  any  good  whereby  we  live,  — 

To  thee  such  substance  let  him  give 

Freely  :  nor  he  nor  thou  be  shamed. 

Strive  that  thy  works  prove  equal :  lest 
That  work  which  thou  hast  done  the  best 
Should  come  to  be  to  thee  at  length 
(Even  as  to  envy  seems  the  strength 
Of  others)  hateful  and  abhorr'd, — 
Thine  own  above  thyself  made  lord,  — 
Of  self-rebuke  the  bitterest. 

Unto  the  man  of  yearning  thought 
And  aspiration,  to  do  nought 
Is  in  itself  almost  an  act,  — 
Being  chasm-fire  and  cataract 

215 


SOOTHSAY 

Of  the  soul's  utter  depths  unseaPd. 
Yet  woe  to  thee  if  once  thou  yield 
Unto  the  act  of  doing  nought  I 

How  callous  seems  beyond  revoke 

The  clock  with  its  last  listless  stroke  ! 

How  much  too  late  at  length  !  —  to  trace 

The  hour  on  its  forewarning  face, 

The  thing  thou  hast  not  dared  to  do  I   .  .   .  . 

Behold,  this  may  be  thus  !     Ere  true 

It  prove,  arise  and  bear  thy  yoke. 

Let  lore  of  all  Theology 

Be  to  thy  soul  what  it  can  be  : 

But  know,  —  the  Power  that  fashions  man 

Measured  not  out  thy  little  span 

For  thee  to  take  the  meting-rod 

In  turn,  and  so  approve  on  God 

Thy  science  of  Theometry. 

To  God  at  best,  to  Chance  at  worst. 

Give  thanks  for  good  things,  last  as  first. 

But  windstrown  blossom  is  that  good 

Whose  apple  is  not  gratitude. 

Even  if  no  prayer  uplift  thy  face, 

Let  the  sweet  right  to  render  grace  \ 

As  thy  soul's  cherished  child  be  nurs'd.  ] 

216 


SOOTHSAY 

Didst  ever  say,  **  Lo,  I  forget  ?  " 
Such  thought  was  to  remember  yet. 
As  in  a  gravegarth,  count  to  see 
The  monuments  of  memory. 
Be  this  thy  soul's  appointed  scope  :  — 
Gaze  onward  without  claim  to  hope, 
Nor,  gazing  backward,  court  regret. 


217 


CHIMES 


HONEY-FLOWERS  to  the  honey-comb 
And  the  honey-bee's  from  home. 

A  honey-comb  and  a  honey-flower, 
And  the  bee  shall  have  his  hour. 

A  honeyed  heart  for  the  honey-comb, 
And  the  humming  bee  flies  home. 

A  heavy  heart  in  the  honey-flower, 
And  the  bee  has  had  his  hour. 


2x8 


II 


A  HONEY-CELL'S  in  the  honeysuckle, 
And  the  honey-bee  knows  it  well. 

The  honey-comb  has  a  heart  of  honey, 
And  the  humming  bee's  so  bonny. 

A  honey-flower's  the  honeysuckle. 
And  the  bee's  in  the  honey-bell. 

The  honeysuckle  is  sucked  of  honey, 
And  the  bee  is  heavy  and  bonny. 


219 


Ill 


BROWN  shell  first  for  the  butterfly 
And  a  bright  wing  by  and  by. 

Butterfly,  good-bye  to  your  shell, 
And,  bright  wings,  speed  you  well. 

Bright  lamplight  for  the  butterfly 
And  a  burnt  wing  by  and  by. 

Butterfly,  alas  for  your  shell, 
And,  bright  wings,  fare  you  well. 


220 


IV 

LOST  love-labour  and  lullaby, 
And  lowly  let  love  lie. 

Lost  love-morrow  and  love-fellow 
And  love's  life  lying  low. 

Lovelorn  labour  and  life  laid  by 
And  lowly  let  love  lie. 

Late  love-longing  and  life-sorrow 
And  love's  life  lying  low. 


221 


BEAUTY'S  body  and  benison 
With  a  bosom-flower  new-blown. 


Bitter  beauty  and  blessing  bann'd 
With  a  breast  to  burn  and  brand. 

Beauty's  bower  in  the  dust  o'erblown 
With  a  bare  white  breast  of  bone. 

Barren  beauty  and  bower  of  sand 
With  a  blast  on  either  hand. 


222 


VI 


BURIED  bars  in  the  breakwater 
And  bubble  of  the  brimming  weir. 

Body's  blood  in  the  breakwater 
And  a  buried  body's  bier. 

Buried  bones  in  the  breakwater 

And  bubble  of  the  brawling  weir.  *^ 

Bitter  tears  in  the  breakwater 
And  a  breaking  heart  to  bear. 


323 


H 


VII 

OLLOW  heaven  and  the  hurricane 
And  hurry  of  the  heavy  rain. 


Hurried  clouds  in  the  hollow  heaven 
And  a  heavy  rain  hard-driven. 

The  heavy  rain  it  hurries  amain 

And  heaven  and  the  hurricane.    (...*;  a- 

Hurrying  wind  o'er  the  heaven's  hollow 
And  the  heavy  rain  to  follow. 


224 


PARTED  PRESENCE 


LOVE,  I  speak  to  your  heart, 
Your  heart  that  is  always  here. 
Oh  draw  me  deep  to  its  sphere. 
Though  you  and  I  are  apart ; 
And  yield,  by  the  spirit's  art, 
Each  distant  gift  that  is  dear. 
O  love,  my  love,  you  are  here  I 

Your  eyes  are  afar  to-day. 

Yet,  love,  look  now  in  mine  eyes. 

Two  hearts  sent  forth  may  despise 
All  dead  things  by  the  way. 
All  between  is  decay, 

Dead  hours  and  this  hour  that  dies, 

O  love,  look  deep  in  mine  eyes  I 

Your  hands  to-day  are  not  here, 

Yet  lay  them,  love,  in  my  hands. 

The  hourglass  sheds  its  sands 
All  day  for  the  dead  hours'  bier ; 
But  now,  as  two  hearts  draw  near. 

This  hour  like  a  flower  expands. 

O  love,  your  hands  in  my  hands  I 

225 


PARTED    PRESENCE 

Your  voice  is  not  on  the  air, 

Yet,  love,  I  can  hear  your  voice : 
It  bids  my  heart  to  rejoice 

As  knowing  your  heart  is  there,  — 

A  music  sweet  to  declare 

The  truth  of  your  steadfast  choice, 
O  love,  how  sweet  is  your  voice  I 

To-day  your  lips  are  afar. 

Yet  draw  my  lips  to  them,  love. 

Around,  beneath,  and  above. 
Is  frost  to  bind  and  to  bar ; 
But  where  I  am  and  you  are, 

Desire  and  the  fire  thereof. 

O  kiss  me,  kiss  me,  my  love  I 

Your  heart  is  never  away. 
But  ever  with  mine,  for  ever. 
For  ever  without  endeavour. 

To-morrow,  love,  as  to-day; 

Two  blent  hearts  never  astray. 
Two  souls  no  power  may  sever. 
Together,  O  my  love,  for  ever  I 


226 


A    DEATH-PARTING 


LEAVES  and  rain  and  the  days  of  the  year, 
(  Water-willow  and  wellaway, ) 
All  these  fall,  and  my  soul  gives  ear. 
And  she  is  hence  who  once  was  here. 
(  With  a  wind  blown  night  and  day,) 

Ah !  but  now,  for  a  secret  sign, 

(  The  willow'' s  wan  and  the  water  white,) 
In  the  held  breath  of  the  day's  decline 
Her  very  face  seemed  pressed  to  mine. 

(  With  a  wind  blown  day  and  night,) 

O  love,  of  my  death  my  life  is  fain ; 

(  The  willows  wave  on  the  water-way,) 
Your  cheek  and  mine  are  cold  in  the  rain. 
But  warm  they'll  be  when  we  meet  again. 

(  With  a  wind  blown  night  and  day.) 

Mists  are  heaved  and  cover  the  sky ; 

(  The  willows  wail  in  the  waning  light,  j 
O  loose  your  lips,  leave  space  for  a  sigh,  — 
They  seal  my  soul,  I  cannot  die. 

(  With  a  wind  blown  day  and  night.) 

227 


A    DEATH-PARTING 

Leaves  and  rain  and  the  days  of  the  year, 

(  Water-willow  and  wellaway^) 
All  still  fall,  and  I  still  give  ear. 
And  she  is  hence,  and  I  am  here. 

(  With  a  wind  blown  night  and  day.) 


228 


SPHERAL    CHANGE 


IN  this  new  shade  of  Death,  the  show 
Passes  me  still  of  form  and  face ; 
Some  bent,  some  gazing  as  they  go. 
Some  swiftly,  some  at  a  dull  pace. 
Not  one  that  speaks  in  any  case. 

If  only  one  might  speak  !  —  the  one 
Who  never  waits  till  I  come  near ; 

But  always  seated  all  alone 
As  listening  to  the  sunken  air. 
Is  gone  before  I  come  to  her. 

O  dearest !  while  we  lived  and  died 

A  living  death  in  every  day, 
Some  hours  we  still  were  side  by  side, 

When  where  I  was  you  too  might  stay 

And  rest  and  need  not  go  away. 

O  nearest,  furthest !     Can  there  be 

At  length  some  hard-earned  heart-won  home, 

Where,  — exile  changed  for  sanctuary,  — 
Our  lot  may  fill  indeed  its  sum, 
And  you  may  wait  and  I  may  come  ? 


229 


SUNSET  WINGS 


TO-NIGHT  this  sunset  spreads  two  golden  wings 
Cleaving  the  western  sky  ; 
Winged  too  with  wind  it  is,  and  winnowings 
Of  birds ;  as  if  the  day's  last  hour  in  rings 
Of  strenuous  flight  must  die. 

Sun-steeped  in  fire,  the  homeward  pinions  sway 

Above  the  dovecote-tops ; 
And  clouds  of  starlings,  ere  they  rest  with  day, 
Sink,  clamorous  like  mill-waters,  at  wild  play, 

By  turns  in  every  copse  : 

Each  tree  heart-deep  the  wrangling  rout  receives,  — 

Save  for  the  whirr  within. 
You  could  not  tell  the  starlings  from  the  leaves ; 
Then  one  great  puff  of  wings,  and  the  swarm  heaves 

Away  with  all  its  din. 

Even  thus  Hope's  hours,  in  ever-eddying  flight, 

To  many  a  refuge  tend  ; 
With  the  first  light  she  laughed,  and  the  last  light 
Glows  round  her  still ;  who  natheless  in  the  night 

At  length  must  make  an  end. 

230 


SUNSET    WINGS 

And  now  the  mustering  rooks  innumerable 

Together  sail  and  soar, 
While  for  the  day's  death,  like  a  tolling  knell. 
Unto  the  heart  they  seem  to  cry,  Farewell, 

No  more,  farewell,  no  more ! 

Is  Hope  not  plumed,  as  'twere  a  fiery  dart? 

And  oh  !  thou  dying  day. 
Even  as  thou  goest  must  she  too  depart. 
And  Sorrow  fold  such  pinions  on  the  heart 

As  will  not  fly  away? 


231 


SONG    AND    MUSIC 


O  LEAVE  your  hand  where  it  lies  cool 
Upon  the  eyes  whose  lids  are  hot : 
Its  rosy  shade  is  bountiful 

Of  silence,  and  assuages  thought. 
O  lay  your  lips  against  your  hand 

And  let  me  feel  your  breath  through  it, 
While  through  the  sense  your  song  shall  fit 
The  soul  to  understand. 

The  music  lives  upon  my  brain 

Between  your  hands  within  mine  eyes ; 
It  stirs  your  lifted  throat  like  pain, 

An  aching  pulse  of  melodies. 
Lean  nearer,  let  the  music  pause  : 

The  soul  may  better  understand 
Your  music,  shadowed  in  your  hand. 

Now  while  the  song  withdraws. 


232 


THREE   SHADOWS 


I  LOOKED  and  saw  your  eyes 
In  the  shadow  of  your  hair, 
As  a  traveller  sees  the  stream 
In  the  shadow  of  the  wood  ; 
And  I  said,  '*  My  faint  heart  sighs. 

Ah  me  !  to  linger  there. 

To  drink  deep  and  to  dream 

In  that  sweet  solitude." 

I  looked  and  saw  your  heart 

In  the  shadow  of  your  eyes, 
As  a  seeker  sees  the  gold 

In  the  shadow  of  the  stream  ; 
And  I  said,  **  Ah  me  !  what  art 

Should  win  the  immortal  prize. 
Whose  want  must  make  life  cold 

And  Heaven  a  hollow  dream  ?  " 

I  looked  and  saw  your  love 

In  the  shadow  of  your  heart, 
As  a  diver  sees  the  pearl 

In  the  shadow  of  the  sea  ; 
And  I  murmured,  not  above 

My  breath,  but  all  apart,  — 
**  Ah !  you  can  love,  true  girl, 

And  is  your  love  for  me  ?  " 

233 


ALAS,   SO    LONG! 


AH  I  dear  one,  we  were  young  so  long, 
It  seemed  that  youth  would  never  go, 
For  skies  and  trees  were  ever  in  song 

And  water  in  singing  flow 
In  the  days  we  never  again  shall  know. 
Alas,  so  long ! 
Ah  !  then  was  it  all  Spring  weather? 
Nay,  but  we  were  young  and  together. 

Ah  I  dear  one,  I've  been  old  so  long, 

It  seems  that  age  is  loth  to  part, 
Though  days  and  years  have  never  a  song, 

And  oh  !  have  they  still  the  art 
That  warmed  the  pulses  of  heart  to  heart  ? 
Alas,  so  long ! 
Ah  I  then  was  it  all  Spring  weather  ? 
Nay,  but  we  were  young  and  together. 

Ah !  dear  one,  youVe  been  dead  so  long,  — 

How  long  until  we  meet  again. 
Where  hours  may  never  lose  their  song 

Nor  flowers  forget  the  rain 
In  glad  noonlight  that  never  shall  wane  ? 
Alas,  so  long  I 
Ah !  shall  it  be  then  Spring  weather, 
And  ah  I  shall  we  be  young  together  ? 


234 


ADIEU 

WAVING  whispering  trees, 
What  do  you  say  to  the  breeze 
And  what  says  the  breeze  to  you? 
'Mid  passing  souls  ill  at  ease, 
Moving  murmuring  trees, 

Would  ye  ever  wave  an  Adieu  ? 

Tossing  turbulent  seas, 
Winds  that  wrestle  with  these. 

Echo  heard  in  the  shell, — 
'Mid  fleeting  life  ill  at  ease, 
Restless  ravening  seas, — 

Would  the  echo  sigh  Farewell? 

Surging  sumptuous  skies. 
For  ever  a  new  surprise. 

Clouds  eternally  new, — 
Is  every  flake  that  flies. 
Widening  wandering  skies, 

For  a  sign — Farewell,  Adieu? 

Sinking  suffering  heart 

That  know'st  how  weary  thou  art, — 

Soul  so  fain  for  a  flight, — 
Aye,  spread  your  wings  to  depart. 
Sad  soul  and  sorrowing  heart, — 

Adieu,  Farewell,  Good-night. 

235 


INSOMNIA 


THIN  are  the  night-skirts  left  behind 
By  daybreak  hours  that  onward  creep, 
And  thin,  alas  !  the  shred  of  sleep 
That  wavers  with  the  spirit's  wind  : 
But  in  half-dreams  that  shift  and  roll 

And  still  remember  and  forget. 
My  soul  this  hour  has  drawn  your  soul 
A  little  nearer  yet. 

Our  lives,  most  dear,  are  never  near. 
Our  thoughts  are  never  far  apart. 
Though  all  that  draws  us  heart  to  heart 

Seems  fainter  now  and  now  more  clear. 

To-night  Love  claims  his  full  control. 
And  with  desire  and  with  regret 

My  soul  this  hour  has  drawn  your  soul 
^  A  little  nearer  yet. 

Is  there  a  home  where  heavy  earth 

Melts  to  bright  air  that  breathes  no  pain, 
Where  water  leaves  no  thirst  again 

And  springing  fire  is  Love's  new  birth? 

If  faith  long  bound  to  one  true  goal 
May  there  at  length  its  hope  beget. 

My  soul  that  hour  shall  draw  your  soul 
For  ever  nearer  yet. 


236 


POSSESSION 


THERE  is  a  cloud  above  the  sunset  hill, 
That  wends  and  makes  no  stay, 
For  its  goal  lies  beyond  the  fiery  west ;    • 
A  lingering  breath  no  calm  can  chase  away, 
The  onward  labour  of  the  wind's  last  will ; 
A  flying  foam  that  overleaps  the  crest 
Of  the  top  wave :  and  in  possession  still 
A  further  reach  of  longing  ;  though  at  rest 

From  all  the  yearning  years. 
Together  in  the  bosom  of  that  day 
Ye  cling,  and  with  your  kisses  drink  your  tears. 


237 


THE   CLOUD   CONFINES 


THE  day  is  dark  and  the  night 
To  him  that  would  search  their  heart ; 
No  lips  of  cloud  that  will  part 
Nor  morning  song  in  the  light : 
Only,  gazing  alone, 
To  him  wild  shadows  are  shown, 
Deep  under  deep  unknown 
And  height  above  unknown  height. 
Still  we  say  as  we  go, — 

**  Strange  to  think  by  the  way, 
Whatever  there  is  to  know, 
That  shall  we  know  one  day." 

The  Past  is  over  and  fled ; 

Named  new,  we  name  it  the  old ; 
Thereof  some  tale  hath  been  told, 
But  no  word  comes  from  the  dead ; 
Whether  at  all  they  be, 
Or  whether  as  bond  or  free. 
Or  whether  they  too  were  we. 
Or  by  what  spell  they  have  sped. 
Still  we  say  as  we  go,  — 

**  Strange  to  think  by  the  way. 
Whatever  there  is  to  know. 
That  shall  we  know  one  day." 

238 


THE    CLOUD    CONFINES 

What  of  the  heart  of  hate 

That  beats  in  thy  breast,  O  Time  ?  — 
Red  strife  from  the  furthest  prime, 
And  anguish  of  fierce  debate ; 
War  that  shatters  her  slain. 
And  peace  that  grinds  them  as  grain, 
And  eyes  fixed  ever  in  vain 
On  the  pitiless  eyes  of  Fate. 

Still  we  say  as  we  go, — 

*'  Strange  to  think  by  the  way. 
Whatever  there  is  to  know. 
That  shall  we  know  one  day." 

What  of  the  heart  of  love 

That  bleeds  in  thy  breast,  O  Man?  — 
Thy  kisses  snatched  'neath  the  ban 
Of  fangs  that  mock  them  above  ; 
Thy  bells  prolonged  unto  knells, 
Thy  hope  that  a  breath  dispels. 
Thy  bitter  forlorn  farewells 
And  the  empty  echoes  thereof  ? 

Still  we  say  as  we  go,  — 

**  Strange  to  think  by  the  way. 
Whatever  there  is  to  know. 
That  shall  we  know  one  day." 

The  sky  leans  dumb  on  the  sea, 
Aweary  with  all  its  wings  ; 
And  oh  !  the  sdng  the  sea  sings 

239 


THE    CLOUD    CONFINES 

Is  dark  everlastingly. 
Our  past  is  clean  forgot, 
Our  present  is  and  is  not, 
Our  future's  a  sealed  seedplot. 
And  what  betwixt  them  are  we?  — 
We  who  say  as  we  go, — 

*'  Strange  to  think  by  the  way, 
Whatever  there  is  to  know, 
That  shall  we  know  one  day." 


240 


SONNETS 


FOR 
THE    HOLY   FAMILY 
By  Michelangelo 
(In  the  National  Gallery*) 

TURN  not  the  prophet's  page,  O  Son  I  He  knew 
All  that  thou  hast  to  suffer,  and  hath  writ. 
Not  yet  thine  hour  of  knowledge.     Infinite 
The  sorrows  that  thy  manhood's  lot  must  rue 
And  dire  acquaintance  of  thy  grief     That  clue 
The  spirits  of  thy  mournful  ministerings 
Seek  through  yon  scroll  in  silence.    For  these  things 
The  angels  have  desired  to  look  into. 

Still  before  Eden  waves  the  fiery  sword,  — 

Her  Tree  of  Life  unransomed  :  whose  sad  Tree 
Of  Knowledge  yet  to  growth  of  Calvary 

Must  yield  its  Tempter,  —  Hell  the  earliest  dead 
Of  Earth  resign,  —  and  yet,  O  Son  and  Lord, 

The  Seed  o'  the  woman  bruise  the  serpent's  head. 


♦  In  this  picture  the  Virgin  Mother  is  seen  withholding  from  the 
Child  Saviour  the  prophetic  writings  in  which  his  sufferings  are  fore- 
told.    Angelic  figures  beside  them  examine  a  scroll. 


243 


FOR 

SPRING 
By  Sandro  Botticelli. 
(In  the  Accademia  of  Florence) 

WHAT  masque  of  what  old  wind-withered  New-Year 
Honours  this  Lady?*  Flora,  wanton-eyed 
For  birth,  and  with  all  flowrets  prankt  and  pied  : 
Aurora,  Zephyrus,  with  mutual  cheer 
Of  clasp  and  kiss  :  the  Graces  circling  near, 

'Neath  bower-linked  arch  of  white  arms  glorified : 
And  with  those  feathered  feet  which  hovering  glide 
O'er  Spring's  brief  bloom,  Hermes  the  harbinger. 

Birth-bare,  not  death-bare  yet,  the  young  stems  stand. 
This  Lady's  temple-columns  :  o'er  her  head 
Love  wings  his  shaft.     What  mystery  here  is  read 

Of  homage  or  of  hope  ?     But  how  command 

Dead  Springs  to  answer?  And  how  question  here 
These  mummers  of  that  wind-withered  New- Year? 


♦  The  same  lady,  here  surrounded  by  the  masque  of  Spring,  is  evi- 
dently the  subject  of  a  portrait  by  Botticelli  formerly  in  the  Pourtal^s 
collection  in  Paris.     This  portrait  is  inscribed  "  Smeralda  Bandinelli." 


244 


FIVE   ENGLISH  POETS 


THOMAS    CHATTERTON 


WITH  Shakspeare's  manhood  at  a  boy's  wild  heart,  — 
Through  Hamlet's  doubt  to  Shakspeare  near  allied, 
And  kin  to  Milton  through  his  Satan's  pride, —   , 
At  Death's  sole  door  he  stooped,  and  craved  a  dart; 
And  to  the  dear  new  bower  of  England's  art,  — 
Even  to  that  shrine  Time  else  had  deified, 

The  unuttered  heart  that  soared  against  his  side, — 
Drove  the  fell  point,  and  smote  life's  seals  apart. 

Thy  nested  home-loves,  noble  Chatterton ; 
The  angel-trodden  stair  thy  soul  could  trace 
Up  Redcliffe's  spire ;  and  in  the  world's  armed  space 

Thy  gallant  sword-play  :  — these  to  many  an  one 

Are  sweet  for  ever ;  as  thy  grave  unknown 
And  love-dream  of  thine  unrecorded  face. 


HS 


II 


WILLIAM    BLAKE 


(To  Frederick  Shields,  on  His  Sketch  of  Blake's 

Workroom  and  Death-Room,  3  Fountain 

Court,  Strand) 

THIS  is  the  place.     Even  here  the  dauntless  soul, 
The  unflinching  hand,  wrought  on  ;  till  in  that  nook. 
As  on  that  very  bed,  his  life  partook 
New  birth,  and  passed.     Yon  river's  dusky  shoal, 
Whereto  the  close-built  coiling  lanes  unroll. 

Faced  his  work-window,  whence  his  eyes  would  stare. 
Thought-wandering,  unto  nought  that  met  them  there. 
But  to  the  unfettered  irreversible  goal. 

This  cupboard.  Holy  of  Holies,  held  the  cloud 
Of  his  soul  writ  and  limned ;  this  other  one, 

His  true  wife's  charge,  full  oft  to  their  abode 
Yielded  for  daily  bread  the  martyr's  stone, 
Ere  yet  their  food  might  be  that  Bread  alone, 

The  words  now  home-speech  of  the  mouth  of  God. 


246 


Ill 


SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE 


HIS  Soul  fared  forth  (as  from  the  deep  home-grove 
The  father-songster  plies  the  hour-long  quest,) 
To  feed  his  soul-brood  hungering  in  the  nest ; 
But  his  warm  Heart,  the  mother-bird,  above 
Their  callow  fledgling  progeny  still  hove 

With  tented  roof  of  wings  and  fostering  breast 
Till  the  Soul  fed  the  soul-brood.     Richly  blest 
From  Heaven  their  growth,  whose  food  was  Human  Love. 

Yet  ah  !  Like  desert  pools  that  show  the  stars 

Once  in  long  leagues,  —  even  such  the  scarce-snatched  hours 

Which  deepening  pain  left  to  his  lordliest  powers  :  — 
Heaven  lost  through  spider-trammelled  prison-bars. 

Six  years,  from  sixty  saved !  Yet  kindling  skies 

Own  them,  a  beacon  to  our  centuries. 


247 


IV 


JOHN    KEATS 


THE  weltering  London  ways  where  children  weep 
And  girls  whom  none  call  maidens  laugh,  —  strange  road 
Miring  his  outward  steps,  who  inly  trode 
The  bright  Castalian  brink  and  Latmos'  steep :  — 
Even  such  his  life's  cross-paths ;  till  deathly  deep 
He  toiled  through  sands  of  Lethe ;  and  long  pain, 
Weary  with  labour  spurned  and  love  found  vain, 
In  dead  Rome's  sheltering  shadow  wrapped  his  sleep. 

O  pang-dowered  Poet,  whose  reverberant  lips 
And  heart-strung  lyre  awoke  the  Moon's  eclipse, — 

Thou  whom  the  daisies  glory  in  growing  o'er, — 
Their  fragrance  clings  around  thy  name,  not  writ 
But  rumour'd  in  water,  while  the  fame  of  it 

Along  Time's  flood  goes  echoing  evermore. 


248 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY 

(Inscription  for  the  Couch,  Still  Preserved,  on  Which 
He  Passed  the  Last  Night  of  His  Life) 

JnnWIXT  those  twin  worlds, — the  world  of  Sleep,  which  gave 
1       No  dream  to  warn,  — the  tidal  world  of  Death, 
Which  the  earth's  sea,  as  the  earth,  replenisheth,  — 

Shelley,  Song's  orient  sun,  to  breast  the  wave, 

Rose  from  this  couch  that  morn.     Ah  I  did  he  brave 
Only  the  sea?  —  or  did  man's  deed  of  hell 
Engulph  his  bark  'mid  mists  impenetrable?  .... 

No  eye  discerned,  nor  any  power  might  save. 

When  that  mist  cleared,  O  Shelley  !  what  dread  veil 
Was  rent  for  thee,  to  whom  far-darkling  Truth 
Reigned  sovereign  guide  through  thy  brief  ageless  youth? 

Was  the  Truth  thy  Truth,  Shelley ?—  Hush  !  All-Hail, 
Past  doubt,  thou  gav'st  it ;  and  in  Truth's  bright  sphere 
Art  first  of  praises,  being  most  praised  here. 


249 


TIBER,    NILE,    AND    THAMES 

v:  "a    - 

THE  head  and  hands  of  murdered  Cicero, 
Above  his  seat  high  in  the  Forum  hung, 
Drew  jeers  and  burning  tears.     When  on  the  rung  j 

Of  a  swift-mounted  ladder,  all  aglow,  \ 

Fulvia,  Mark  Antony's  shameless  wife,  with  show  j 

Of  foot  firm-poised  and  gleaming  arm  upflung,  ■ 

Bade  her  sharp  needle  pierce  that  god-like  tongue  i 

Whose  speech  fed  Rome  even  as  the  Tiber's  flow. 

And  thou,  Cleopatra's  Needle,  that  hadst  thrid 
Great  skirts  of  Time  ere  she  and  Antony  hid 

Dead  hope  !  — hast  thou  too  reached,  surviving  death, 
A  city  of  sweet  speech  scorned,  —  on  whose  chill  stone 
Keats  withered,  Coleridge  pined,  and  Chatterton, 

Breadless,  with  poison  froze  the  God-fired  breath? 


250 


THE 

LAST  THREE  FROM  TRAFALGAR 

At  the  Anniversary  Banquet, 
2IST   October,    187* 

IN  grappled  ships  around  The  Victory, 
Three  boys  did  England's  Duty  with  stout  cheer. 
While  one  dread  truth  was  kept  from  every  ear. 
More  dire  than  deafening  fire  that  churned  the  sea : 
For  in  the  flag-ship's  weltering  cockpit,  he 
Who  was  the  Battle's  Heart  without  a  peer. 
He  who  had  seen  all  fearful  sights  save  Fear, 
Was  passing  from  all  life  save  Victory. 

And  round  the  old  memorial  board  to-day. 

Three  greybeards  —  each  a  warworn  British  Tar — 
View  through  the  mist  of  years  that  hour  afar : 
Who  soon  shall  greet,  'mid  memories  of  fierce  fray, 
The  impassioned  soul  which  on  its  radiant  way 
Soared  through  the  fiery  cloud  of  Trafalgar. 


251 


CZAR  ALEXANDER  THE  SECOND 


(13TH  March,  1881) 


FROM  him  did  forty  million  serfs,  endowed 
Each  with  six  feet  of  death-due  soil,  receive 
Rich  freeborn  lifelong  land,  whereon  to  sheave 
Their  country's  harvest.     These  to-day  aloud 
Demand  of  Heaven  a  Father's  blood,  —  sore  bow'd 

With  tears  and  thrilled  with  wrath  ;  who,  while  they  grieve. 
On  every  guilty  head  would  fain  achieve 
All  torment  by  his  edicts  disallow'd. 

He  stayed  the  knout's  red-ravening  fangs  ;  and  first 
Of  Russian  traitors,  his  own  murderers  go 
White  to  the  tomb.     While  he,  —  laid  foully  low 
With  limbs  red-rent,  with  festering  brain  which  erst 
Willed  kingly  freedom, — 'gainst  the  deed  accurst 
To  God  bears  witness  of  his  people's  woe. 


i 

252  ; 


WORDS    ON    THE    WINDOW-PANE* 


DID  she  in  summer  write  it,  or  in  spring, 
Or  with  this  wail  of  autumn  at  her  ears, 
Or  in  some  winter  left  among  old  years 
Scratched  it  through  tettered  cark  ?     A  certain  thing 
That  round  her  heart  the  frost  was  hardening, 
Not  to  be  thawed  of  tears,  which  on  this  pane 
Channelled  the  rime,  perchance,  in  fevered  rain, 
For  false  man's  sake  and  love's  most  bitter  sting. 

Howbeit,  between  this  last  word  and  the  next 
Unwritten,  subtly  seasoned  was  the  smart. 

And  here  at  least  the  grace  to  weep  :  if  she. 
Rather,  midway  in  her  disconsolate  text. 
Rebelled  not,  loathing  from  the  trodden  heart 

That  thing  which  she  had  found  man's  love  to  be. 


For  a  woman's  fragmentary  inscription. 


253 


WINTER 


HOW  large  that  thrush  looks  on  the  bare  thorn-tree  I 
A  swarm  of  such,  three  little  months  ago, 
Had  hidden  in  the  leaves  and  let  none  know 
Save  by  the  outburst  of  their  minstrelsy. 
A  white  flake  here  and  there  —  a  snow-lily 

Of  last  night's  frost  —  our  naked  flower-beds  hold  ; 
And  for  a  rose-flower  on  the  darkling  mould 
The  hungry  redbreast  gleams.     No  bloom,  no  bee. 

The  current  shudders  to  its  ice-bound  sedge : 
Nipped  in  their  bath,  the  stark  reeds  one  by  one 
Flash  each  its  clinging  diamond  in  the  sun : 
'Neath  winds  which  for  this  Winter's  sovereign  pledge 
Shall  curb  great  king-masts  to  the  ocean's  edge 
And  leave  memorial  forest-kings  o'erthrown. 


254 


SPRING 


SOFT-LITTERED  is  the  new-year's  lambing-fold, 
And  in  the  hollowed  haystack  at  its  side 
The  shepherd  lies  o'  nights  now,  wakeful-eyed 
At  the  ewes'  travailing  call  through  the  dark  cold. 
The  young  rooks  cheep  'mid  the  thick  caw  o'  the  old  : 
And  near  unpeopled  stream-sides,  on  the  ground, 
By  her  spring-cry  the  moorhen's  nest  is  found, 
Where  the  drained  flood-lands  flaunt  their  marigold. 

Chill  are  the  gusts  to  which  the  pastures  cower. 
And  chill  the  current  where  the  young  reeds  stand 
As  green  and  close  as  the  young  wheat  on  land : 
Yet  here  the  cuckoo  and  the  cuckoo-flower 
Plight  to  the  heart  Spring's  perfect  imminent  hour 

Whose  breath  shall  soothe  you  like  your  dear  one's  hand. 


255 


THE    CHURCH-PORCH 


SISTER,  first  shake  we  off  the  dust  we  have 
Upon  our  feet,  lest  it  defile  the  stones 
Inscriptured,  covering  their  sacred  bones 
Who  lie  i'  the  aisles  which  keep  the  names  they  gave, 
Their  trust  abiding  round  them  in  the  grave ; 
Whom  painters  paint  for  visible  orisons, 
And  to  whom  sculptors  pray  in  stone  and  bronze ; 
Their  voices  echo  still  like  a  spent  wave. 

Without  here,  the  church-bells  are  but  a  tune. 
And  on  the  carven  church-door  this  hot  noon 

Lays  all  its  heavy  sunshine  here  without : 
But  having  entered  in,  we  shall  find  there 
Silence,  and  sudden  dimness,  and  deep  prayer, 

And  faces  of  crowned  angels  all  about. 


256 


UNTIMELY    LOST 

(Oliver  Madox  Brown.     Born  1855 ;  Died  1874) 


UPON  the  landscape  of  his  coming  life 
A  youth  high-gifted  gazed,  and  found  it  fair : 
The  heights  of  work,  the  floods  of  praise,  were  there. 
What  friendships,  what  desires,  what  love,  what  wife?  — 
All  things  to  come.     The  fanned  springtide  was  rife 
With  imminent  solstice ;   and  the  ardent  air 
Had  summer  sweets  and  autumn  fires  to  bear ;  — 
Heart's  ease  full-pulsed  with  perfect  strength  for  strife. 

A  mist  has  risen  :  we  see  the  youth  no  more  : 
Does  he  see  on  and  strive  on?     And  may  we 
Late-tottering  worldworn  hence,  find  his  to  be 

The  young  strong  hand  which  helps  us  up  that  shore? 

Or,  echoing  the  No  More  with  Nevermore, 

Must  Night  be  ours  and  his  ?     We  hope  :  and  he  ? 


257 


PLACE    DE    LA    BASTILLE,    PARIS 


HOW  dear  the  sky  has  been  above  this  place ! 
Small  treasures  of  this  sky  that  we  see  here 
Seen  weak  through  prison-bars  from  year  to  year ; 
Eyed  with  a  painful  prayer  upon  God's  grace 
To  save,  and  tears  that  stayed  along  the  face 
Lifted  at  sunset.     Yea,  how  passing  dear, 
Those  nights  when  through  the  bars  a  wind  left  clear 
The  heaven,  and  moonlight  soothed  the  limpid  space  ! 

So  was  it,  till  one  night  the  secret  kept 
Safe  in  low  vault  and  stealthy  corridor 

Was  blown  abroad  on  gospel-tongues  of  flame. 
O  ways  of  God,  mysterious  evermore  I 
How  many  on  this  spot  have  cursed  and  wept 

That  all  might  stand  here  now  and  own  Thy  Name. 


258 


"FOUND" 

(For  a  Picture) 

^  ^  T^HERE  is  a  budding  morrow  in  midnight :  "  — 
1       So  sang  our  Keats,  our  English  nightingale. 
And  here,  as  lamps  across  the  bridge  turn  pale 

In  London's  smokeless  resurrection-light, 

Dark  breaks  to  dawn.     But  o'er  the  deadly  blight 
Of  love  deflowered  and  sorrow  of  none  avail 
Which  makes  this  man  gasp  and  this  woman  quail, 

Can  day  from  darkness  ever  again  take  flight? 

Ah  !  gave  not  these  two  hearts  their  mutual  pledge. 
Under  one  mantle  sheltered  'neath  the  hedge 

In  gloaming  courtship  ?     And  O  God  I  to-day 
He  only  knows  he  holds  her ;  —  but  what  part 
Can  life  now  take?     She  cries  in  her  locked  heart,  — 

**  Leave  me  —  I  do  not  know  you  —  go  away  I  " 


259 


A    SEA-SPELL 


(For  a  Picture) 


HER  lute  hangs  shadowed  in  the  apple-tree, 
While  flashing  fingers  weave  the  sweet-strung  spell 
Between  its  chords ;  and  as  the  wild  notes  swell, 
The  sea-bird  for  those  branches  leaves  the  sea. 
But  to  what  sound  her  listening  ear  stoops  she  ? 
What  netherworld  gulf-whispers  doth  she  hear, 
In  answering  echoes  from  what  planisphere, 
Along  the  wind,  along  the  estuary? 

She  sinks  into  her  spell :  and  when  full  soon 
Her  lips  move  and  she  soars  into  her  song. 
What  creatures  of  the  midmost  main  shall  throng     ^ 

In  furrowed  surf-clouds  to  the  summoning  rune  :  ^^f^"^^ 
Till  he,  the  fated  mariner,  hears  her  cry, 
And  up  her  rock,  bare-breasted,  comes  to  die? 


260 


FIAMMETTA 


(For  a  Picture) 


BEHOLD  Fiammetta,  shown  in  Vision  here. 
Gloom-girt  'mid  Spring-flushed  apple-growth  she  stands ; 
And  as  she  sways  the  branches  with  her  hands, 
Along  her  arm  the  siihdered  bloom  falls  sheer, 
In  separate  petals  shed,  each  like  a  tear ; 

While  from  the  quivering  bough  the  bird  expands 
His  wings.     And  lo  !  thy  spirit  understands 
Life  shaken  and  shower'd  and  flown,  and  Death  drawn  near. 

All  stirs  with  change.     Her  garments  beat  the  air : 

The  angel  circling  round  her  aureole         >:^'V«^  /^  ^Ct:-^^ 
Shimmers  in  flight  against  the  tree's  grey  bole: 

While  she,  with  reassuring  eyes  most  fair, 

A,presage  and  a  promise  stands  ;  as  'twere 

On  Death's  dark  storm  the  rainbow  of  the  Soul. 


261 


THE    DAY-DREAM 

(For  a  Picture) 


THE  thronged  boughs  of  the  shadowy  sycamore 
Still  bear  young  leaflets  half  the  summer  through  ; 
From  when  the  robin  'gainst  the  unhidden  blue 
Perched  dark,  till  now,  deep  in  the  leafy  core. 
The  embowered  throstle's  urgent  wood-notes  soar 

Through  summer  silence.    Still  the  leaves  come  new  ; 
Yet  never  rosy-sheathed  as  those  which  drew 
Their  spiral  tongues  from  spring-buds  heretofore. 

Within  the  branching  shade  of  Reverie 

Dreams  even  may  spring  till  autumn  ;  yet  none  be 

Like  woman's  budding  day-dream  spirit-fann'd. 
Lo !  tow'rd  deep  skies,  not  deeper  than  her  look, 
She  dreams ;  till  now  on  her  forgotten  book 

Drops  the  forgotten  blossom  from  her  hand. 


262 


ASTARTE    SYRIACA 
(For  a  Picture) 


MYSTERY :  lo  !  betwixt  the  sun  and  moon 
Astarte  of  the  Syrians  :  Venus  Queen 
Ere  Aphrodite  was.     In  silver  sheen 
Her  twofold  girdle  clasps  the  infinite  boon 
Of  bliss  whereof  the  heaven  and  earth  commune : 
And  from  her  neck's  inclining  flower-stem  lean 
Love-freighted  lips  and  absolute  eyes  that  wean 
The  pulse  of  hearts  to  the  spheres'  dominant  tune. 

Torch-bearing,  her  sweet  ministers  compel 
All  thrones  of  light  beyond  the  sky  and  sea 
The  witnesses  of  Beauty's  face  to  be : 

That  face,  of  Love's  all-penetrative  spell 

Amulet,  talisman,  and  oracle, — 

Betwixt  the  sun  and  moon  a  mystery. 


263 


PROSERPINA 
(Per  un  ^adro) 


LUNGI  e  la  luce  che  in  su  questo  muro 
Rifrange  appena,  un  breve  istante  scorta 
Del  no  palazzo  alia  soprana  porta. 
Lungi  quei  fiori  d'Enna,  O  lido  oscuro, 
Dal  frutto  tuo  fatal  che  omai  m'e  duro. 
Lungi  quel  cielo  dal  tartareo  manto 
Che  qui  mi  cuopre :  e  lungi  ahi  lungi  ahi  quanto 
Le  notti  che  saran  dai  di  che  furo. 

Lungi  da  me  mi  sento ;  e  ognor  sognando 
Cerco  e  ricerco,  e  resto  ascoltatrice ; 
E  qualche  cuore  a  qualche  anima  dice, 
(Di  cui  mi  giunge  il  suon  da  quando  in  quando, 
Continuamente  insieme  sospirando,)  — 
**  Oime  per  te,  Proserpina  infelice  I" 


264 


PROSERPINA 


(For  a  Picture) 


AFAR  away  the  light  that  brings  cold  cheer 
Unto  this  wall,  — one  instant  and  no  more 
Admitted  at  my  distant  palace-door. 
Afar  the  flowers  of  Enna  from  this  drear 
Dire  fruit,  which,  tasted  once,  must  thrall  me  here. 
Afar  those  skies  from  this  Tartarean  grey 
That  chills  me  :  and  afar,  how  far  away, 
The  nights  that  shall  be  from  the  days  that  were. 

Afar  from  mine  own  self  I  seem,  and  wing 

Strange  ways  in  thought,  and  listen  for  a  sign : 
And  still  some  heart  unto  some  soul  doth  pine, 

(Whose  sounds  mine  inner  sense  is  fain  to  bring, 

Continually  together  murmuring,)  — 

**  Woe's  me  for  thee,  unhappy  Proserpine  ! " 


365 


LA    BELLA    MANO 
(Per  un  ^adro) 


O  BELLA  Mano,  che  ti  lavi  e  piaci 
In  quel  medesmo  tuo  puro  elemento 
Donde  la  Dea  dell'  amoroso  avvento 
Nacque,  (e  dall'  onda  s'  infuocar  le  faci 
Di  mille  inispegnibili  fornaci)  :  — 
Come  a  Venere  a  te  Toro  e  Targento 
Offron  gli  Amori ;  e  ognun  riguarda  attento 
La  bocca  che  sorride  e  te  che  taci. 

In  dolce  modo  dove  onor  t'  invii 

Vattene  adorna,  e  porta  insiem  fra  tante 
Di  Venere  e  di  vergine  sembiante  ; 
Umilemente  in  luoghi  onesti  e  pii 
Bianca  e  soave  ognora ;  infin  che  sii, 
O  Mano,  mansueta  in  man  d'amante. 


366 


LA    BELLA    MANO 


(F'or  a  Picture) 


O  LOVELY  hand,  that  thy  sweet  self  dost  lave 
In  that  thy  pure  and  proper  element, 
Whence  erst  the  Lady  of  Love's  high  advent 
Was  born,  and  endless  fires  sprang  from  the  wave :  - 
Even  as  her  Loves  to  her  their  offerings  gave. 
For  thee  the  jewelled  gifts  they  bear ;  while  each 
Looks  to  those  lips,  of  music-measured  speech 
The  fount,  and  of  more  bliss  than  man  may  crave. 

In  royal  wise  ring-girt  and  bracelet-spann'd, 
A  flower  of  Venus'  own  virginity. 

Go  shine  among  thy  sisterly  sweet  band ; 
In  maiden-minded  converse  delicately 
Evermore  white  and  soft ;  until  thou  be, 

O  hand  !  heart-handsel'd  in  a  lover's  hand. 


267 


ADDITIONAL   POEMS: 
MDCCCLXXXVI 


AT   THE   SUN-RISE    IN    1848 


GOD  said,  Let  there  be  light ;  and  there  was  light. 
Then  heard  we  sounds  as  though  the  Earth  did  sing 
And  the  Earth's  angel  cried  upon  the  wing : 
We  saw  priests  fall  together  and  turn  white  : 
And  covered  in  the  dust  from  the  sun's  sight, 
A  king  was  spied,  and  yet  another  king. 
We  said  :  **  The  round  world  keeps  its  balancing  ; 
On  this  globe,  they  and  we  are  opposite, — 
If  it  is  day  with  us,  with  them  'tis  night. 

Still,  Man,  in  thy  just  pride,  remember  this  : — 
Thou  hadst  not  made  that  thy  sons'  sons  shall  ask 
What  the  word  king  may  mean  in  their  day's  task. 
But  for  the  light  that  led :  and  if  light  is. 
It  is  because  God  said.  Let  there  be  light. 


271 


.   AUTUMN   SONG 


KNOWST  thou  not  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf 
How  the  heart  feels  a  languid  grief 
Laid  on  it  for  a  covering, 
And  how  sleep  seems  a  goodly  thing 
In  Autumn  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf  ? 

And  how  the  swift  beat  of  the  brain 

Falters  because  it  is  in  vain, 

In  Autumn  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf 
Knowest  thou  not?  and  how  the  chief 

Of  joys  seems  —  not  to  suffer  pain? 

Know'st  thou  not  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf 
How  the  soul  feels  like  a  dried  sheaf 
Bound  up  at  length  for  harvesting. 
And  how  death  seems  a  comely  thing 
In  Autumn  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf? 


272 


THE   LADY'S    LAMENT 


NEVER  happy  any  more  I 
Aye,  turn  the  saying  o'er  and  o'er, 
It  says  but  what  it  said  before, 
And  heart  and  life  are  just  as  sore. 
The  wet  leaves  blow  aslant  the  floor 
In  the  rain  through  the  open  door. 
No,  no  more. 

Never  happy  any  more  I 
The  eyes  are  weary  and  give  o'er, 
But  still  the  soul  weeps  as  before. 
And  always  must  each  one  deplore 
Each  once,  nor  bear  what  others  bore? 
This  is  now  as  it  was  of  yore. 
No,  no  more. 

Never  happy  any  more  ! 
Is  it  not  but  a  sorry  lore 

That  says,  **  Take  strength,  the  worst  is  o'er? 
Shall  the  stars  seem  as  heretofore  ? 
The  day  wears  on  more  and  more  — 
While  I  was  weeping  the  day  wore. 
No,  no  more. 

273 


THE    LADY'S    LAMENT 

Never  happy  any  more ! 
In  the  cold  behind  the  door 
That  was  the  dial  striking  four : 
One  for  joy  the  past  hours  bore, 
Two  for  hope  and  will  cast  o'er, 
One  for  the  naked  dark  before. 
No,  no  more. 

Never  happy  any  more  ! 
Put  the  light  out,  shut  the  door. 
Sweep  the  wet  leaves  from  the  floor. 
Even  thus  Fate's  hand  has  swept  her  floor. 
Even  thus  Love's  hand  has  shut  the  door 
Through  which  his  warm  feet  passed  of  yore. 
Shall  it  be  opened  any  more? 
No,  no,  no  more. 


274 


A   TRIP  TO    PARIS   AND    BELGIUM 


LONDON    TO    FOLKESTONE 

A  CONSTANT  keeping-past  of  shaken  trees, 
And  a  bewildered  glitter  of  loose  road ; 
Banks  of  bright  growth,  with  single  blades  atop 
Against  white  sky  :  and  wires  —  a  constant  chain- 
That  seem  to  draw  the  clouds  along  with  them 
(Things  which  one  stoops  against  the  light  to  see 
Through  the  low  window ;  shaking  by  at  rest. 
Or  fierce  like  water  as  the  swiftness  grows)  ; 
And,  seen  through  fences  or  a  bridge  far  off. 
Trees  that  in  moving  keep  their  intervals 
Still  one  'twixt  bar  and  bar ;  and  then  at  times 
Long  reaches  of  green  level,  where  one  cow, 
Feeding  among  her  fellows  that  feed  on. 
Lifts  her  slow  neck,  and  gazes  for  the  sound. 


Fields  mown  in  ridges ;  and  close  garden-crops 
Of  the  earth's  increase ;  and  a  constant  sky 
Still  with  clear  trees  that  let  you  see  the  wind ; 
And  snatches  of  the  engine-smoke,  by  fits 
Tossed  to  the  wind  against  the  landscape,  where 
Rooks  stooping  heave  their  wings  upon  the  day. 

275 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 

Brick  walls  we  pass  between,  passed  so  at  once 
That  for  the  suddenness  I  cannot  know 
Or  what,  or  where  begun,  or  where  at  end. 
Sometimes  a  station  in  grey  quiet;  whence. 
With  a  short  gathered  champing  of  pent  sound, 
We  are  let  out  upon  the  air  again. 
Pauses  of  water  soon,  at  intervals. 
That  has  the  sky  in  it ; — the  reflexes 
O'  the  trees  move  towards  the  bank  as  we  go  by, 
Leaving  the  water's  surface  plain.     I  now 
Lie  back  and  close  my  eyes  a  space ;  for  they 
Smart  from  the  open  forwardness  of  thought 
Fronting  the  wind. 


I  did  not  scribble  more, 
Be  certain,  after  this ;  but  yawned,  and  read, 
And  nearly  dozed  a  little,  I  believe ; 
Till,  stretching  up  against  the  carriage-back, 
I  was  roused  altogether,  and  looked  out 
To  where  the  pale  sea  brooded  murmuring. 


276 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 


II 


BOULOGNE    TO    AMIENS    AND    PARIS 

STRONG  extreme  speed,  that  the  brain  hurries  with, 
Further  than  trees,  and  hedges,  and  green  grass 
Whitened  by  distance, — further  than  small  pools 
Held  among  fields  and  gardens,  further  than 
Haystacks,  and  wind-mill-sails,  and  roofs  and  herds, — 
The  sea's  last  margin  ceases  at  the  sun. 

The  sea  has  left  us,  but  the  sun  remains. 
Sometimes  the  country  spreads  aloof  in  tracts 
Smooth  from  the  harvest ;  sometimes  sky  and  land 
Are  shut  from  the  square  space  the  window  leaves 
By  a  dense  crowd  of  trees,  stem  behind  stem 
Passing  across  each  other  as  we  pass : 
Sometimes  tall  poplar-wands  stand  white,  their  heads 
Outmeasuring  the  distant  hills.     Sometimes 
The  ground  has  a  deep  greenness ;  sometimes  brown 
In  stubble ;  and  sometimes  no  ground  at  all, 
For  the  close  strength  of  crops  that  stand  unreaped. 
The  water-plots  are  sometimes  all  the  sun's,  — 
Sometimes  quite  green  through  shadows  filling  them, 

277 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 

Or  islanded  with  growths  of  reeds,  —  or  else 
Masked  in  grey  dust  like  the  wide  face  o'  the  fields. 
And  still  the  swiftness  lasts ;  that  to  our  speed 
The  trees  seem  shaken  like  a  press  of  spears. 

There  is  some  count  of  us  :  — folks  travelling  capped, 
Priesthood,  and  lank  hard-featured  soldiery, 
Females  (no  women),  blouses.  Hunt,  and  I. 

We  are  delayed  at  Amiens.     The  steam 
Snorts,  chafes,  and  bridles,  like  three  hundred  horse, 
And  flings  its  dusky  mane  upon  the  air. 
Our  company  is  thinned,  and  lamps  alight. 
But  still  there  are  the  folks  in  travelling-caps, 
No  priesthood  now,  but  always  soldiery. 
And  babies  to  make  up  for  show  in  noise ; 
Females  (no  women),  blouses.  Hunt,  and  I. 

Our  windows  at  one  side  are  shut  for  warmth  ; 
Upon  the  other  side,  a  leaden  sky, 
Hung  in  blank  glare,  makes  all  the  country  dim, 
Which  too  seems  bald  and  meagre,  —  be  it  truth, 
Or  of  the  waxing  darkness.     Here  and  there 
The  shade  takes  light,  where  in  thin  patches  stand 
The  unstirred  dregs  of  water. 


278 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 


III 


THE    PARIS    RAILWAY-STATION 

IN  France,  (to  baffle  thieves  and  murderers) 
A  journey  takes  two  days  of  passport  work 
At  least.     The  plan's  sometimes  a  tedious  one, 
But  bears  its  fruit.     Because,  the  other  day, 
In  passing  by  the  Morgue,  we  saw  a  man 
(The  thing  is  common,  and  we  never  should 
Have  known  of  it,  only  we  passed  that  way) 
Who  had  been  stabbed  and  tumbled  in  the  Seine, 
Where  he  had  stayed  some  days.    The  face  was  black, 
And,  like  a  negro's,  swollen  ;  all  the  flesh  < 

Had  furred,  and  broken  into  a  green  mould. 

Now,  very  likely,  he  who  did  the  job 
Was  standing  among  those  who  stood  with  us. 
To  look  upon  the  corpse.     You  fancy  him  — 
Smoking  an  early  pipe,  and  watching,  as 
An  artist,  the  effect  of  his  last  work. 
This  always  if  it  had  not  struck  him  that 
'Twere  best  to  leave  while  yet  the  body  took 
Its  crust  of  rot  beneath  the  Seine.     It  may  : 
But,  if  it  did  not,  he  can  now  remain 
Without  much  fear.      Only^  if  he  should  want 

279 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 

To  travel,  and  have  not  his  passport  yet, 

(Deep  dogs  these  French  police  I )  he  may  be  caught. 

Therefore  you  see  (lest,  being  murderers, 
We  should  not  have  the  sense  to  go  before 
The  thing  were  known,  or  to  stay  afterwards) 
There  is  good  reason  why  —  having  resolved 
To  start  for  Belgium  —  we  were  kept  three  days 
To  learn  about  the  passports  first,  then  do 
As  we  had  learned.     This  notwithstanding,  in 
The  fulness  of  the  time  'tis  come  to  pass. 


280 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 


IV 


REACHING    BRUSSELS 

THERE  is  small  change  of  country  ;  but  the  sun 
Is  out,  and  it  seems  shame  this  were  not  said. 
For  upon  all  the  grass  the  warmth  has  caught ; 
And  betwixt  distant  whitened  poplar-stems 
Makes  greener  darkness  ;  and  in  dells  of  trees 
Shows  spaces  of  a  verdure  that  was  hid ; 
And  the  sky  has  its  blue  floated  with  white, 
And  crossed  with  falls  of  the  sun's  glory  aslant 
To  lay  upon  the  waters  of  the  world ; 
And  from  the  road  men  stand  with  shaded  eyes 
To  look ;  and  flowers  in  gardens  have  grown  strong ; 
And  our  own  shadows  here  within  the  coach 
Are  brighter ;  and  all  colour  has  more  bloom. 

So,  after  the  sore  torments  of  the  route  ;  — 
Toothache,  and  headache,  and  the  ache  of  wind. 
And  huddled  sleep,  and  smarting  wakefulness. 
And  night,  and  day,  and  hunger  sick  at  food. 
And  twenty-fold  relays,  and  packages 
To  be  unlocked,  and  passports  to  be  found. 
And  heavy  well-kept  landscape  ;  —  we  were  glad 
Because  we  entered  Brussels  in  the  sun. 

281 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 


ANTWERP   TO    GHENT 

WE  are  upon  the  Scheldt.     We  know  we  move 
Because  there  is  a  floating  at  our  eyes 
Whatso  they  seek ;  and  because  all  the  things 
Which  on  our  outset  were  distinct  and  large 
Are  smaller  and  much  weaker  and  quite  grey, 
And  at  last  gone  from  us.     No  motion  else. 

We  are  upon  the  road.     The  thin  swift  moon 
Runs  with  the  running  clouds  that  are  the  sky, 
And  with  the  running  water  runs  —  at  whiles 
Weak  'neath  the  film  and  heavy  growth  of  reeds. 
The  country  swims  with  motion.     Time  itself 
Is  consciously  beside  us,  and  perceived. 
Our  speed  is  such  the  sparks  our  engine  leaves 
Are  burning  after  the  whole  train  has  passed. 
The  darkness  is  a  tumult.     We  tear  on, 
The  roll  behind  us  and  the  cry  before. 
Constantly,  in  a  lull  of  intense  speed 
And  thunder.     Any  other  sound  is  known 
Merely  by  sight.     The  shrubs,  the  trees  your  eye 
Scans  for  their  growth,  are  far  along  in  haze. 

282 


A    TRIP    TO    PARIS    AND    BELGIUM 

The  sky  has  lost  its  clouds,  and  lies  away 

Oppressively  at  calm  :  the  moon  has  failed  : 

Our  speed  has  set  the  wind  against  us.     Now 

Our  engine's  heat  is  fiercer,  and  flings  up 

Great  glares  alongside.     Wind  and  steam  and  speed 

And  clamour  and  the  night.     We  are  in  Ghent. 


283 


THE  STAIRCASE  OF  NOTRE   DAME, 

PARIS 


AS  one  who,  groping  in  a  narrow  stair, 
Hath  a  strong  sound  of  bells  upon  his  ears, 
Which,  being  at  a  distance  off,  appears 
Quite  close  to  him  because  of  the  pent  air : 
So  with  this  France.     She  stumbles  file  and  square 
Darkling  and  without  space  for  breath  :  each  one 
Who  hears  the  thunder  says  :     **  It  shall  anon 
Be  in  among  her  ranks  to  scatter  her." 

This  may  be  ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  storm 
Is  spent  in  rain  upon  the  unscathed  seas, 
Or  wasteth  other  countries  ere  it  die  : 
Till  she,  —  having  climbed  always  through  the  swarm 
Of  darkness  and  of  hurting  sound, — from  these 
Shall  step  forth  on  the  light  in  a  still  sky. 


284 


NEAR    BRUSSELS  — A 
PAUSE 


HALF-WAY 


THE  turn  of  noontide  has  begun. 
In  the  weak  breeze  the  sunshine  yields. 
There  is  a  bell  upon  the  fields. 
On  the  long  hedgerow's  tangled  run 
A  low  white  cottage  intervenes  : 
Against  the  wall  a  blind  man  leans, 
And  sways  his  face  to  have  the  sun. 

Our  horses'  hoofs  stir  in  the  road, 

Quiet  and  sharp.     Light  hath  a  song 
Whose  silence,  being  heard,  seems  long. 

The  point  of  noon  maketh  abode. 

And  will  not  be  at  once  gone  through. 
The  sky's  deep  colour  saddens  you. 

And  the  heat  weighs  a  dreamy  load. 


285 


ANTWERP    AND    BRUGES 

I  CLIMBED  the  stair  in  Antwerp  church, 
What  time  the  circling  thews  of  sound 
At  sunset  seem  to  heave  it  round. 
Far  up,  the  carillon  did  search 
The  wind,  and  the  birds  came  to  perch 
Far  under,  where  the  gables  wound. 

In  Antwerp  harbour  on  the  Scheldt 
I  stood  along,  a  certain  space 
Of  night.     The  mist  was  near  my  face ; 

Deep  on,  the  flow  was  heard  and  felt. 

The  carillon  kept  pause,  and  dwelt 
In  music  through  the  silent  place. 

John  Memmeling  and  John  van  Eyck 
Hold  state  at  Bruges.     In  sore  shame 
I  scanned  the  works  that  keep  their  name. 
The  carillon,  which  then  did  strike 
Mine  ears,  was  heard  of  theirs  alike  : 
It  set  me  closer  unto  them. 

I  climbed  at  Bruges  all  the  flight 
The  belfry  has  of  ancient  stone. 
For  leagues  I  saw  the  east  wind  blown ; 

The  earth  was  grey,  the  sky  was  white. 

I  stood  so  near  upon  the  height 
That  my  flesh  felt  the  carillon. 


286 


ON    LEAVING    BRUGES 


THE  city's  steeple-towers  remove  away, 
Each  singly ;  as  each  vain  infatuate  Faith 
Leaves  God  in  heaven,  and  passes.     A  mere  breath 
Each  soon  appears,  so  far.     Yet  that  which  lay 
The  first  is  now  scarce  further  or  more  grey 
Than  the  last  is.     Now  all  are  wholly  gone. 
The  sunless  sky  has  not  once  had  the  sun 
Since  the  first  weak  beginning  of  the  day. 

The  air  falls  back  as  the  wind  finishes. 

And  the  clouds  stagnate.     On  the  water's  face 
The  current  breathes  along,  but  is  not  stirred. 
There  is  no  branch  that  thrills  with  any  bird. 
Winter  is  to  possess  the  earth  a  space, 
And  have  its  will  upon  the  extreme  seas. 


287 


vox    ECCLESIyE,    VOX    CHRISTI 


I  saw  under  the  altar  the  souls  of  them  that  were  slain  for  the 
word  of  God,  and  for  the  testimony  which  they  held ;  and  they 
cried  with  a  loud  voice,  saying,  How  long,  O  Lord,  holy  and 
true,  dost  Thou  not  judge  and  avenge  our  blood  on  them  that 
dwell  on  the  earth  ?  —  Rev.  vi. :  9,  10. 

NOT  'neath  the  altar  only,  — yet,  in  sooth, 
There  more  than  elsewhere,  —  is  the  cry,  **  How  long? 
The  right  sown  there  hath  still  borne  fruit  in  wrong  — 
The  wrong  waxed  fourfold.    Thence,  (in  hate  of  truth) 
O'er  weapons  blessed  for  carnage,  to  fierce  youth 
From  evil  age,  the  word  hath  hissed  along :  — 
*'  Ye  are  the  Lord's  :  go  forth,  destroy,  be  strong  : 
Christ's  Church  absolves  ye  from  Christ's  law  of  ruth." 

Therefore  the  wine-cup  at  the  altar  is 

As  Christ's  own  blood  indeed,  and  as  the  blood 
Of  Christ's  elect,  at  divers  seasons  spilt 
On  the  altar-stone,  that  to  man's  church,  for  this. 
Shall  prove  a  stone  of  stumbling,  — whence  it  stood 
To  be  rent  up  ere  the  true  Church  be  built. 


288 


THE    MIRROR 


SHE  knew  it  not :  —  most  perfect  pain 
To  learn  :  this  too  she  knew  not.     Strife 
For  me,  calm  hers,  as  from  the  first. 
'Twas  but  another  bubble  burst 
Upon  the  curdling  draught  of  life,  — 
My  silent  patience  mine  again. 

As  who,  of  forms  that  crowd  unknown 
Within  a  distant  mirror's  shade, 

Deems  such  an  one  himself,  and  makes 
Some  sign,  but  when  the  image  shakes 
No  whit,  he  finds  his  thought  betray'd, 
And  must  seek  elsewhere  for  his  own. 


289 


DURING    MUSIC 


OCOOL  unto  the  sense  of  pain 
That  last  night's  sleep  could  not  destroy 
O  warm  unto  the  sense  of  joy, 

That  dreams  its  life  within  the  brain. 

What  though  I  lean  o'er  thee  to  scan 

The  written  music  cramped  and  stiff;  — 

'Tis  dark  to  me  as  hieroglyph 
On  those  weird  bulks  Egyptian. 

But  as  from  those,  dumb  now  and  strange, 

A  glory  wanders  on  the  earth. 
Even  so  thy  tones  can  call  a  birth 

From  these,  to  shake  my  soul  with  change. 

O  swift,  as  in  melodious  haste 

Float  o'er  the  keys  thy  fingers  small ; 

O  soft,  as  is  the  rise  and  fall 

Which  stirs  that  shade  within  thy  breast. 


290 


ON    THE    SITE    OF    A    MULBERRY- 
TREE; 

Planted  by  Wm.  Shakspeare  ;    Felled  by  the 
Rev.  F.  Gastrell 


THIS  tree,  here  fall'n,  no  common  birth  or  death 
Shared  with  its  kind.    The  world's  enfranchised  son, 
Who  found  the  trees  of  Life  and  Knowledge  one, 
Here  set  it,  frailer  than  his  laurel-wreath. 
Shall  not  the  wretch  whose  hand  it  fell  beneath 
Rank  also  singly  —  the  supreme  unhung? 
Lo  !  Sheppard,  Turpin,  pleading  with  black  tongue 
This  viler  thief's  unsuffocated  breath  I 

We'll  search  thy  glossary,  Shakspeare  I  whence  almost, 
And  whence  alone,  some  name  shall  be  reveal'd 
For  this  deaf  drudge,  to  whom  no  length  of  ears 
Sufficed  to  catch  the  music  of  the  spheres ; 
Whose  soul  is  carrion  now,  —  too  mean  to  yield 
Some  Starveling's  ninth  allotment  of  a  ghost. 


291 


ON   CERTAIN    ELIZABETHAN 
REVIVALS 


ORUFF-EMBASTIONED  vast  Elizabeth, 
Bush  to  these  bushel-bellied  casks  of  wine, 
Home-growth,  'tis  true,  but  rank  as  turpentine  — 
What  would  we  with  such  skittle-plays  at  death? 
Say,  must  we  watch  these  brawlers'  brandished  lathe. 
Or  to  their  reeking  wit  our  ears  incline, 
Because  all  Castaly  flowed  crystalline 
In  gentle  Shakspeare's  modulated  breath? 

What !  must  our  drama  with  the  rat-pit  vie. 
Nor  the  scene  close  while  one  is  left  to  kill  ? 

Shall  this  be  poetry  ?     And  thou  —  thou  man 

Of  blood,  thou  cannibalic  Caliban, 
What  shall  be  said  of  thee?     A  poet?  —  Fie  I 

**An  honourable  murderer,  if  you  will." 


292 


ENGLISH    MAY 


WOULD  God  your  health  were  as  this  month  of  May 
Should  be,  were  this  not  England,  —  and  your  face 
Abroad,  to  give  the  gracious  sunshine  grace 
And  laugh  beneath  the  budding  hawthorn-spray. 
But  here  the  hedgerows  pine  from  green  to  grey 
While  yet  May's  lyre  is  tuning,  and  her  song 
Is  weak  in  shade  that  should  in  sun  be  strong ; 
And  your  pulse  springs  not  to  so  faint  a  lay. 

If  in  my  life  be  breath  of  Italy, 

Would  God  that  I  might  yield  it  all  to  you  ! 
So,  when  such  grafted  warmth  had  burgeoned  through 
The  languor  of  your  Maytime's  hawthorn-tree. 
My  spirit  at  rest  should  walk  unseen  and  see 
The  garland  of  your  beauty  bloom  anew. 


293 


DAWN    ON    THE    NIGHT-JOURNEY 


TILL  dawn  the  wind  drove  round  me.     It  is  past 
And  still,  and  leaves  the  air  to  lisp  of  bird, 

And  to  the  quiet  that  is  almost  heard 
Of  the  new-risen  day,  as  yet  bound  fast 
In  the  first  warmth  of  sunrise.     When  the  last 

Of  the  sun's  hours  to-day  shall  be  fulfilled, 

There  shall  another  breath  of  time  be  stilled 
For  me,  which  now  is  to  my  senses  cast 
As  much  beyond  me  as  eternity. 

Unknown,  kept  secret.     On  the  newborn  air 
The  moth  quivers  in  silence.     It  is  vast. 
Yea,  even  beyond  the  hills  upon  the  sea, 

The  day  whose  end  shall  give  this  hour  as  sheer 
As  chaos  to  the  irrevocable  Past. 


294 


TO    PHILIP    BOURKE   MARSTON, 

Inciting  Me  to  Poetic  Work 

SWEET  Poet,  thou  of  whom  these  years  that  roll 
Must  one  day  yet  the  burdened  birthright  learn, 
And  by  the  darkness  of  thine  eyes  discern 
How  piercing  was  the  sight  within  thy  soul ;  — 
Gifted  apart,  thou  goest  to  the  great  goal, 
A  cloud-bound  radiant  spirit,  strong  to  earn, 
Light-reft,  that  prize  for  which  fond  myriads  yearn 
Vainly  light-blest,  —  the  Seer's  aureole. 

And  doth  thine  ear,  divinely  dowered  to  catch 
All  spheral  sounds  in  thy  song  blent  so  well. 
Still  hearken  for  my  voice's  slumbering  spell 
With  wistful  love  ?  Ah  !  let  the  Muse  now  snatch 
My  wreath  for  thy  young  brows,  and  bend  to  watch 
Thy  veiled  transfiguring  sense's  miracle. 


295 


RALEIGH'S   CELL   IN   THE   TOWER 


HERE  writ  was  the  World's  History  by  his  hand 
Whose  steps  knew  all  the  earth ;  albeit  his  world 
In  these  few  piteous  paces  then  was  furl'd. 
Here  daily,  hourly,  have  his  proud  feet  spann'd 
This  smaller  speck  than  the  receding  land 

Had  ever  shown  his  ships ;  what  time  he  hurl'd 
Abroad  o'er  new-found  regions  spiced  and  pearl'd 
His  country's  high  dominion  and  command. 

Here  dwelt  two  spheres.     The  vast  terrestrial  zone 
His  spirit  traversed ;  and  that  spirit  was 
Itself  the  zone  celestial,  round  whose  birth 
The  planets  played  within  the  zodiac's  girth ; 
Till  hence,  through  unjust  death  unfeared,  did  pass 
His  spirit  to  the  only  land  unknown. 


296 


FOR 

AN   ANNUNCIATION 
Early  German 

THE  lilies  stand  before  her  like  a  screen 
Through  which,  upon  this  warm  and  solemn  day, 
God  surely  hears.     For  there  she  kneels  to  pray 
Who  wafts  our  prayers  to  God  —  Mary  the  Queen. 
She  was  Faith's  Present,  parting  what  had  been 
From  what  began  with  her,  and  is  for  aye. 
On  either  hand,  God's  twofold  system  lay : 
With  meek  bowed  face  a  Virgin  prayed  between. 

So  prays  she,  and  the  Dove  flies  in  to  her. 

And  she  has  turned.     At  the  low  porch  is  one 
Who  looks  as  though  deep  awe  made  him  to  smile. 

Heavy  with  heat,  the  plants  yield  shadow  there  ; 
The  loud  flies  cross  each  other  in  the  sun ; 
And  the  aisled  pillars  meet  the  poplar-aisle. 


297 


FOR 

A    VIRGIN   AND   CHILD 

By  Hans  Memmelinck 

(In  the  Academy  of  Bruges) 

MYSTERY :  God,  man's  life,  born  into  man 
of  woman.     There  abideth  on  her  brow 
The  ended  pang  of  knowledge,  the  which  now 
Is  calm  assured.     Since  first  her  task  began 
She  hath  known  all.     What  more  of  anguish  than 
Endurance  oft  hath  lived  through,  the  whole  space 
Through  night  till  day,  passed  weak  upon  her  face 
While  the  heard  lapse  of  darkness  slowly  ran? 

All  hath  been  told  her  touching  her  dear  Son, 
And  all  shall  be  accomplished.     Where  He  sits 
Even  now,  a  babe.  He  holds  the  symbol  fruit 
Perfect  and  chosen.     Until  God  permits, 
His  souFs  elect  still  have  the  absolute 
Harsh  nether  darkness,  and  make  painful  moan. 


298 


FOR 
A    MARRIAGE   OF   ST.   CATHERINE 

By  the  Same 

(In  the  Hospital  of  St,  John  at  Bruges) 

MYSTERY  :  Catherine  the  bride  of  Christ. 
She  kneels,  and  on  her  hand  the  holy  Child 
Now  sets  the  ring.     Her  life  is  hushed  and  mild, 
Laid  in  God's  knowledge  —  ever  unenticed 
From  God,  and  in  the  end  thus  fitly  priced. 
Awe,  and  the  music  that  is  near  her,  wrought 
Of  angels,  have  possessed  her  eyes  in  thought ; 
Her  utter  joy  is  hers,  and  hath  sufficed. 

There  is  a  pause  while  Mary  Virgin  turns 

The  leaf,  and  reads.    With  eyes  on  the  spread  book, 
That  damsel  at  her  knees  reads  after  her. 
John  whom  He  loved,  and  John  His  harbinger, 
Listen  and  watch.     Whereon  soe'er  thou  look, 
The  light  is  starred  in  gems  and  the  gold  burns. 


299 


MARY'S   GIRLHOOD 

(For  a  Picture) 

II 

THESE  are  the  symbols.     On  that  cloth  of  red 
r  the  centre  is  the  Tripoint :  perfect  each, 
Except  the  second  of  its  points,  to  teach 
That  Christ  is  not  yet  born.     The  books  —  whose  head 
Is  golden  Charity,  as  Paul  hath  said  — 
Those  virtues  are  wherein  the  soul  is  rich : 
Therefore  on  them  the  lily  standeth,  which 
Is  Innocence,  being  interpreted. 

The  seven-thorn'd  briar  and  the  palm  seven-leaved 
Are  her  great  sorrow  and  her  great  reward. 
Until  the  end  be  full,  the  Holy  One 
Abides  without.     She  soon  shall  have  achieved 
Her  perfect  purity :  yea,  God  the  Lord 

Shall  soon  vouchsafe  His  Son  to  be  her  Son. 


300 


THE   CHURCH    PORCHES 
II 

SISTER,  arise  :  we  have  no  more  to  sing, 
Or  say.     The  priest  abideth  as  is  meet 

To  minister.     Rise  up  out  of  thy  seat. 
Though  peradventure  'tis  an  irksome  thing 
To  cross  again  the  threshold  of  a  king, 

Where  his  doors  stand  against  the  evil  street. 

And  let  each  step  increase  upon  our  feet 
The  dust  we  shook  from  them  at  entering. 
Must  we  of  very  sooth  go  hence ;  the  air. 

Whose  heat  outside  makes  mist  that  can  be  seen, 
Is  very  clear  and  cool  where  we  have  been. 
The  priest  abideth  ministering.     Lo  ! 

As  he  for  service,  why  not  we  for  prayer? 
It  is  so  bidden.     Sister,  let  us  go. 


301 


VERSES    EOR  ROSSETTTS   OWN 
WORKS  OF  ART 


MICHAEL   SCOTT'S   WOOING 

(Eor  a  Drawing) 

ROSE-SHEATHED  beside  the  rosebud  tongue 
Lurks  the  young  adder's  tooth ; 
Milk-mild  from  new-born  hemlock-bluth 
The  earliest  drops  are  wrung  : 

And  sweet  the  flower  of  his  first  youth 
When  Michael  Scott  was  young. 


MNEMOSYNE 

(For  a  Picture) 

THOU  filFst  from  the  winged  chalice  of  the  soul 
Thy  lamp,  O  Memory,  fire-winged  to  its  goal. 


302 


POEMS  IN  ITALIAN  {OR  ITALIAN 

AND    ENGLISH),    FRENCH, 

AND    LATIN 


M 


LA    RICORDANZA 

AGGIOR  dolore  e  ben  la  Ricordanza, 
O  neir  amaro  inferno  amena  stanza? 


MEMORY 


Is  Memory  most  of  miseries  miserable, 
Or  the  one  flower  of  ease  in  bitterest  hell  ? 


Con  manto  d'oro,  collana,  ed  anelli, 

Le  place  aver  con  quelli 
Non  altro  che  una  rosa  ai  suoi  capelli. 

With  golden  mantle,  rings  and  necklace  fair, 

It  likes  her  best  to  wear 
Only  a  rose  within  her  golden  hair. 


Robe  d'or,  mais  rien  ne  veut 
Qu'  une  rose  a  ses  cheveux. 

A  golden  robe,  yet  will  she  wear 
Only  a  rose  in  her  golden  hair. 

303 


BARCAROLA 

PER  carit^, 
Mostrami  amore 

Mi  punge  il  cuore, 
Ma  non  si  sa 

Dove  e  amore. 
Che  mi  fa 
La  bella  eta, 
Se  non  si  sa 
Come  amer^? 

Ahi  me  solingo ! 

II  cuor  mi  stringo  I 

Non  piu  ramingo, 
Per  carita ! 

Per  carita, 

Mostrami  il  cielo : 
Tutto  e  un  velo, 

E  non  si  sa 
Dove  e  il  cielo. 

Se  si  sta 

Cosi  cola, 

Non  si  sa 

Se  non  si  va. 
Ahi  me  lontano  I 
Tutto  e  in  vano  I 
Prendimi  in  mano, 

Per  carita  I 

304 


BARCAROLA 

OLTRE  tomba 
Qualche  cosa? 
E  che  ne  did? 
Saremo  felici? 
Terra  mai  posa, 
E  mar  rimbomba. 


BAMBINO    FASCIATO 

APIPPO  Pipistrello 
Far  fall  a  la  fan  dull  a : 
**  O  vedi  quanto  e  bello 

Ridendo  in  questa  culla ! 
E  noi  I'abbiamo  fatto, 
Noi  due  insiem  d  'un  tratto, 
E  senza  noi  fia  nulla." 


305 


THOM^    FIDES 


i(  pvIGITUM  tuum,  Thoma, 
L/     Infer,  et  vide  manus  I 
Manum  tuam,  Thoma, 
Affer,  et  mitte  in  latus." 
<*  Dominus  et  Deus, 

Deus,"  dixit, 
**  Et  Dominus  meus." 

**  Quia  me  vidisti, 
Thoma,  credidisti. 
Beati  qui  non  viderunt, 
Thoma,  et  crediderunt." 

"  Dominus  et  Deus, 
Deus,"  dixit, 

<*  Et  Dominus  meus." 


306 


VERSICLES  AND   FRAGMENTS 


THE    ORCHARD-PIT 


PILED  deep  below  the  screening  apple-branch 
They  lie  with  bitter  apples  in  their  hands  : 
And  some  are  only  ancient  bones  that  blanch, 
And  some  had  ships  that  last  year's  wind  did  launch, 
And  some  were  yesterday  the  lords  of  lands. 

In  the  soft  dell,  among  the  apple-trees. 
High  up  above  the  hidden  pit  she  stands, 

And  there  for  ever  sings,  who  gave  to  these. 

That  lie  below,  her  magic  hour  of  ease. 

And  those  her  apples  holden  in  their  hands. 

This  in  my  dreams  is  shown  me ;  and  her  hair 

Crosses  my  lips  and  draws  my  burning  breath ; 
Her  song  spreads  golden  wings  upon  the  air, 
Life's  eyes  are  gleaming  from  her  forehead  fair. 
And  from  her  breasts  the  ravishing  eyes  of  Death. 

Men  say  to  me  that  sleep  hath  many  dreams. 

Yet  I  knew  never  but  this  dream  alone  : 
There,  from  a  dried-up  channel,  once  the  stream's, 

307 


THE    ORCHARD-PIT 

The  glen  slopes  up ;  even  such  in  sleep  it  seems 
As  to  my  waking  sight  the  place  well  known. 

*  *  *  *  * 

My  love  I  call  her,  and  she  loves  me  well : 
But  I  love  her  as  in  the  maelstrom's  cup 
The  whirled  stone  loves  the  leaf  inseparable 
That  clings  to  it  round  all  the  circling  swell, 
And  that  the  same  last  eddy  swallows  up. 


TO   ART 

I  LOVED  thee  ere  I  loved  a  woman,  Love. 


ON    BURNS 


In  whomsoever,  since  Poesy  began, 

A  Poet  most  of  all  men  we  may  scan. 
Burns  of  all  poets  is  the  most  a  Man. 


FIN   DI    MAGGIO 

Oh  I  May  sits  crowned  with  hawthorn-flower, 
And  is  Love's  month,  they  say ; 

And  Love's  the  fruit  that  is  ripened  best 
By  ladies'  eyes  in  May. 

308 


And  the  Sibyl,  you  know.  I  saw  her  with  my  own  eyes 
at  Cumae,  hanging  in  a  jar;  and,  when  the  boys  asked  her, 
"What  would  you,  Sibyl?"  she  answered,  "I  would  die."  — 
Petronius. 

**  I  SAW  the  Sibyl  at  Cumae  " 

(  One  said  )  *  *  with  mine  own  eye. 

She  hung  in  a  cage,  and  read  her  rune 
To  all  the  passers-by. 

Said  the  boys,  *  What  wouldst  thou,  Sibyl? ' 
She  answered,  *I  would  die.'" 


As  balmy  as  the  breath  of  her  you  love 

When  deep  between  her  breasts  it  comes  to  you. 


"  Was  it  a  friend  or  foe  that  spread  these  lies? 
**  Nay,  who  but  infants  question  in  such  wise? 
Twas  one  of  my  most  intimate  enemies." 


At  her  step  the  water-hen 
Springs  from  her  nook,  and  skimming  the  clear  stream, 
Ripples  its  waters  in  a  sinuous  curve. 
And  dives  again  in  safety. 


Would  God  I  knew  there  were  a  God  to  thank 
When  thanks  rise  in  me  ! 

309 


I  SHUT  myself  in  with  my  soul, 
And  the  shapes  come  eddying  forth. 


If  I  could  die  like  the  British  Queen 

Who  faced  the  Roman  war, 
Or  hang  in  a  cage  for  my  country's  sake 

Like  Black  Bess  of  Dunbar ! 


She  bound  her  green  sleeve  on  my  helm. 
Sweet  pledge  of  love's  sweet  meed : 

Warm  was  her  bared  arm  round  my  neck 
As  well  she  bade  me  speed ; 

And  her  kiss  clings  still  between  my  lips, 
Heart's  beat  and  strength  at  need. 


Where  is  the  man  whose  soul  has  never  waked 
To  sudden  pity  of  the  poor  torn  past? 


As  much  as  in  a  hundred  years,  she's  dead 
Yet  is  to-day  the  day  on  which  she  died. 


Who  shall  say  what  is  said  in  me, 

With  all  that  I  might  have  been  dead  in  me  ? 


310 


TRANSLA  TIONS 

LA    PIA 
Dante 


^  ^   A  H  when  on  earth  thy  voice  again  is  heard, 

l\     And  thou  from  the  long  road  hast  rested  thee,' 
After  the  second  spirit  said  the  third, 
**  Remember  me  who  am  La  Pia.     Me 
Siena,  me  Maremma,  made,  unmade. 

He  knoweth  this  thing  in  his  heart  —  even  he 
With  whose  fair  jewel  I  was  ringed  and  wed." 


SXi 


CAPITOLO 
A.  M.  Salvini  to  Francesco  Redi,  i6  — 

KNOW  then,  dear  Redi,  (sith  thy  gentle  heart 
Would  read  my  riddle  and  my  mystery,)  — 
That  I  am  thinking  from  men's  thoughts  apart ; 

And  that  I  learn  deeper  theology 
While  my  soul  travails  over  Dante's  page. 

Than  with  long  study  in  the  schools  might  be. 
Many  and  many  things,  holy  and  sage, 

To  the  dim  mind  his  mighty  words  unveil, 
Thralling  it  with  a  welcome  vassalage : 

Nor  doth  his  glorious  lamp  flicker  or  fail 
By  reason  of  that  vapoury  shrouding  strange, 

Which  in  like  argument  may  much  prevail. 
Through  old  and  trodden  paths  he  scorned  to  range ; 

He  took  the  leap  of  Chaos ;  —  high,  and  low. 
And  to  the  middle  region's  state  of  change. 

Bright  things,  and  dubious  things,  and  things  of  woe. 
Thence  to  the  mind  he  spake  with  pictured  speech. 

Making  the  tongue  cry  out,  *<  They  must  be  so  I " 
The  how  and  wherefore  will  be  told  of  each ; 

And  that  his  soul  might  take  its  flight  and  roam, 
Beatrice  gave  him  wings  of  boundless  reach. 

O  hallowed  breast,  the  Muses'  chosen  home, 

312 


CAPITOLO 

Blest  be  the  working  of  thy  steadfast  aim, 

And  blest  thy  fancy  through  all  time  to  come, 
Which  whispers  now,  and  now  with  words  of  flame 

Like  sudden  thunder  makes  the  heart  to  pause ; 
Whence  laurel  to  thy  brow  and  myrtle  came. 

For  in  love-speaking,  so  to  love's  sweet  laws 
Thy  verse  is  subject,  that  no  truer  truth 

From  passion's  store  the  stricken  spirit  draws. 
But  pent  in  Hell's  huge  coil,  for  pity  and  ruth 

Thy  voice  is  slow  and  broken  and  profound. 
To  the  harsh  echoes  singing  sorrowful  sooth ; 

And  thy  steps  stumble  in  the  weary  bound ;  — 
Of  that  dim  maze  where  nothing  is  that  shines 

Stalking  the  desolate  circles  round  and  round. 
Then  through  the  prisoned  air  which  sobs  and  pines 

With  Purgatorial  grief,  up  dost  thou  soar 
To  Paradise,  on  the  sun's  dazzling  lines. 

There  all  the  wonders  thou  dost  reckon  o'er 
Of  that  great  Joy  that  never  waxeth  old,  — 

A  mighty  hearing  seldom  heard  before. 
To  us  by  thee  pleasures  and  woes  are  told. 

What  path  to  fly  from,  in  whose  steps  to  tread, 
That  from  man's  mind  the  veil  may  be  unrolled. 

But  oh  !  thine  angry  tones,  awful  and  dread, 
What  time  God  puts  the  thunder  in  thy  mouth. 

Upon  His  foes  the  righteous  wrath  to  shed ! 
Then,  then  thy  thoughts  are  of  a  mighty  growth ;  — 

Then  does  the  terror  of  His  holy  curse 
Hurtle  from  East  to  West,  from  North  to  South ;  — 

313 


CAPITOLO 

Then  heavy  sorrow  'ginn'st  thou  to  rehearse ;  — 
Then  Priests  and  Princes  tremble  and  are  pale, 

More  than  with  ague  shaken  at  thy  verse. 
Though  in  thy  praise  all  human  praises  fail, 

Even  of  the  few  who  love  thee  and  who  bless,  — 
The  scoffing  of  the  herd  shall  not  prevail. 

Thy  words  are  weights,  under  whose  mighty  stress 
Tyrants  and  evil  men  shall  shrink  and  quail ; 

True  seeds  of  an  undying  perfectness. 


314 


TWO    LYRICS    FROM    NICCOLO 
TOMMASEO 


THE   YOUNG  GIRL 

EVEN  as  a  child  that  weeps, 
Lulled  by  the  love  it  keeps, 
My  grief  lies  back  and  sleeps. 

Yes,  it  is  Love  bears  up 

My  soul  on  his  spread  wings, 

Which  the  days  would  else  chafe  out 
With  their  infinite  harassings. 
To  quicken  it,  he  brings 

The  inward  look  and  mild 

That  thy  face  wears,  my  child. 

As  in  a  gilded  room 

Shines  'mid  the  braveries 
Some  wild-flower,  by  the  bloom 

Of  its  delicate  quietness 

Recalling  the  forest-trees 
In  whose  shadow  it  was. 
And  the  water  and  the  green  grass  :  - 

315 


THE    YOUNG    GIRL 

Even  so,  *mid  the  stale  loves 
The  city  prisoneth, 

Thou  touchest  me  gratefully, 

Like  Nature's  wholesome  breath  : 
Thy  heart  nor  hardeneth 

In  pride,  nor  putteth  on 

Obeisance  not  its  own. 


Not  thine  the  skill  to  shut 
The  love  up  in  thine  heart, 

Neither  to  seem  more  tender, 
Less  tender  than  thou  art. 
Thou  dost  not  hold  apart 

In  silence  when  thy  joys 

Most  long  to  find  a  voice. 

Let  the  proud  river-course, 

That  shakes  its  mane  and  champs, 

Run  between  marble  shores 
By  the  light  of  many  lamps. 
While  all  the  ooze  and  the  damps 

Of  the  city's  choked-up  ways 

Make  it  their  draining-place. 

Rather  the  little  stream 

For  me  ;  which,  hardly  heard. 
Unto  the  flower,  its  friend, 

316 


THE    YOUNG    GIRL 

Whispers  as  with  a  word. 

The  timid  journeying  bird 
Of  the  pure  drink  that  flows 
Takes  but  one  drop,  and  goes. 


317 


II 

A    FAREWELL 

I  SOOTHED  and  pitied  thee  :  and  for  thy  lips,  — 
A  smile,  a  word  (sure  guide 
To  love  that's  ill  to  hide  !  ) 
Was  all  I  had  thereof. 

Even  as  an  orphan  boy,  whom,  sore  distressed, 

A  gentle  woman  meets  beside  the  road 
And  takes  him  home  with  her,  —  so  to  thy  breast 
Thou  didst  take  home  my  image  :  pure  abode  ! 
'Twas  but  a  virgin's  dream.     This  heart  bestow'd 
Respect  and  piety 
And  friendliness  on  thee  : 
But  it  is  poor  in  love. 

No,  I  am  not  for  thee.     Thou  art  too  new, 

I  am  too  old,  to  the  old  beaten  way. 
The  griefs  are  not  the  same  which  grieve  us  two : 
Thy  thought  and  mine  lie  far  apart  to-day. 
Less  than  I  wish,  more  than  I  hope,  alway 
Are  heart  and  soul  in  thee. 
Thou  art  too  much  for  me. 
Sister,  and  not  enough. 

318 


A    FAREWELL 

A  better  and  a  fresher  heart  than  mine 

Perchance  may  meet  thee  ere  thy  youth  be  told ; 
Or,  cheated  by  the  longing  that  is  thine, 

Waiting  for  life  perchance  thou  shalt  wax  old. 
Perchance  the  time  may  come  when  I  may  hold 
It  had  been  best  for  me 
To  have  had  thy  ministry 

On  the  steep  path  and  rough. 


319 


TWO  SONGS  FROM  VICTOR  HUGO'S 
"BURGRAVES" 


THROUGH  the  long  winter  the  rough  wind  tears ; 
With  their  white  garment  the  hills  look  wan. 
Love  on  :  who  cares  ? 
Who  cares?     Love  on. 
My  mother  is  dead ;  God's  patience  wears  ; 
It  seems  my  chaplain  will  not  have  done. 
Love  on  :  who  cares  ? 
Who  cares?     Love  on. 
The  Devil,  hobbling  up  the  stairs, 
Comes  for  me  with  his  ugly  throng. 
Love  on  :  who  cares  ? 
Who  cares?     Love  on. 


320 


II 


IN  the  time  of  the  civil  broils 
Our  swords  are  stubborn  things. 
A  fig  for  all  the  cities  ! 
A  fig  for  all  the  kings  ! 

The  Burgrave  prospereth : 

Men  fear  him  more  and  more. 

Barons,  a  fig  for  his  Holiness  ! 
A  fig  for  the  Emperor  ! 

Right  well  we  hold  our  own 

With  the  brand  and  the  iron  rod. 

A  fig  for  Satan  Burgraves  ! 
Burgraves,  a  fig  for  God  ! 


321 


LILITH 

From  Gothe 


HOLD  thou  thy  heart  against  her  shining  hair, 
If,  by  thy  fate,  she  spread  it  once  for  thee ; 
For,  when  she  nets  a  young  man  in  that  snare, 
So  twines  she  him  he  never  may  be  free. 


NOTES 


NOTES 


VARIANTS  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  LIFE 

Instead  of  printing  at  the  foot  of  each  page  the  new  readings 
given  by  Rossetti  in  his  1881  version  of  these  Sonnets,  we  have 
finally  decided  to  give  them  here,  thus  showing  at  a  glance  the 
entire  extent  of  his  alterations. 

BRIDAL  BIRTH 

II,  line  9,  •'  shielded  in  "  reads  "  shadowed  by." 

LOVE'S  REDEMPTION 

The  title  was  changed  to  "Love's  Testament." 

III,  line  2,  "lips"  reads  "heart." 

line  3,  "  Clothed  with  his  fire,  thy  heart  his  testament;  " 
line  8,  "And  murmured,  '  I  am  thine,  thou'rt  one  with  me  ! '  " 
line  9,  "  for"  reads  "to." 

NUPTIAL  SLEEP 

VII.  In  the  original  MS.  entitled  Placata  Venere.  Printed  as 
Sonnet  V  in  the  volume  of  1870.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the 
cancellation  of  this  sonnet  did  not  take  place  until  after  the  sixth 
edition  of  the  Poems  was  issued  in  1872,  that  being  the  latest  edition  in 
which  it  appeared  in  England. 

SUPREME  SURRENDER 

VIII,  line  2,  "Along  his  love-sown  harvest-field  of  sleep" 


NOTES 

LOVE'S  LOVERS 

IX,  line  5,  '*  deem"  reads  •'  vaunt." 

THE  PORTRAIT 

XI,  line  9,  "long  lithe"  reads  "  enthroning" 

WINGED  HOURS 

XXVI,  line  8,  "Full  oft  through  our  contending  joys  unheard. 

THE  CHOICE 

LXXII  (i),  line  5,  "yellow"  reads  "  golden." 
lines  12  and  13  read, 
"Through  many  years  they  toil ;  then  on  a  day 
They  die  not,  —  for  their  life  was  death,  —  but  cease;" 

LXXIV  (3),  line  12,  "  grey"  reads  "  last." 

BARREN  SPRING 

LXXXIV,  line  i,  reads 

"  Once  more  the  changed  year's  turning  wheel  returns  :" 
line  5,  "  now"  reads  •'  here." 
line  13,  "  gaze"  reads  "  stay." 

VAIN  VIRTUES 

LXXXVI,  line  7,  reads 

"  Of  anguish,  while  the  pit's  pollution  leaves" 
line  9,  ♦'  garbage"  reads  "  tribute." 
line  13,  "worthier"  reads  "destined." 

LOST  DAYS 

LXXXVII,  line  8,  reads 

"The  undying  throats  of  Hell,  athirst  alway?" 

THE  ONE  HOPE 

CII,  line  I,  "When  vain  desire  at  last  and  vain  regret" 
line  12,  "written"  reads  "alien." 

326 


NOTES 
II 

NOTES   BY   W.    M.    ROSSETTI 

These  notes  are  taken  from  The  Collected  Works  of  Rossetti^ 
(London,  1886,)  and  constitute  all  that  deal  with  the  contents 
of  Ballads  and  Sonnets, 

ROSE  MARY 

This  poem  was  written  in  the  early  autumn  of  1871.  The  Beryl- 
songs  are  a  later  addition,  saj  1879.  The  very  general  opinion  has 
been  that  they  were  better  away,  and  I  cannot  but  agree  with  it.  I 
have  heard  my  brother  say  that  he  wrote  them  to  show  that  he  was  not 
incapable  of  the  daring  rhyming  and  rhythmical  exploits  of  some 
other  poets.  As  to  this  point  readers  must  judge.  It  is  at  any  rate 
true  that  in  making  the  word  "Beryl"  the  pivot  of  his  experiment, 
a  word  to  which  there  are  the  fewest  possible  rhymes,  my  brother 
weighted  himself  heavily. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  LIFE:  Prefatory  Note 

This  note  appeared  in  the  volume  Ballads  and  Sonnets,  1881.  The 
point  which  it  emphasizes  is  that  a  series  entitled  The  House  of  Life 
had  been  published  in  the  volume  Poems  of  1870,  consisting  at  that 
time  partly  of  sonnets  and  partly  of  other  compositions ;  whereas  in 
the  volume  Ballads  and  Sonnets  the  series  thus  entitled  consisted 
solely  of  sonnets,  and  was  in  other  respects  not  a  little  different. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  LIFE:  Text 

The  dates  of  the  various  sonnets  which  make  up  this  series  are 
extremely  various.  The  earliest  of  them  may  date  in  1848,  or  even  a 
year  or  so  preceding.  The  latest  come  close  before,  or  even  in,  i88i, 
in  the  autumn  of  which  year  the  series  was  published  in  the  same  form 
which  it  now  bears.  One  positive  line  of  demarcation  between  the 
various  sonnets  separates  those  which  appeared  in  the  volume  Poems, 


NOTES 

published  in  the  Spring  of  1870,  from  any  others.  I  am  far  from  hav- 
ing a  clear  idea  or  definite  information  as  to  the  true  dates  of  the 
sonnets.  But  I  think  the  reader  is  entitled  to  some  sort  of  guidance 
regarding  them,  forming  as  they  do  so  extremely  important  a  constitu- 
ent in  my  brother's  poetical  and  intellectual  record ;  and  therefore, 
keeping  in  view  the  line  of  demarcation  above  referred  to,  I  append 
here  a  rough  suggestion  of  what  may  have  been  their  sequence  in  point 
of  date.  All  the  items  which  are  here  entered  "Between  1848  and 
1869"  appeared  in  the  Poems  of  1870,  except  the  second  and  third 
sonnets  (Numbers  76  and  77)  of  Old  and  New  Art. 

Between  1848  and  j86g 


NO. 

NO. 

91. 

"Retro  me,  Sathana!" 

85. 

Farewell  to  the  Glen 

72  to  74.     The  Choice 

96. 

The  Vase  of  Life 

75  to  77.     Old  and  New  Art 

6. 

The  Kiss 

70. 

Autumn  Idleness 

8. 

Supreme  Surrender 

48. 

Broken  Music 

10. 

Passion  and  Worship 

66. 

Known  in  Vain 

80. 

The  Monochord 

16. 

The  Birth-Bond 

99. 

He  and  I 

68. 

The  Landmark 

100, 

loi.     Newborn  Death 

64. 

Inclusiveness 

102. 

The  One  Hope 

78. 

Soul's  Beauty* 

2. 

Bridal  Birth 

79- 

Body's  Beauty* 

3- 

Love's  Redemption 

71. 

Ihe  Hill  Summit 

4- 

Lovesight 

86. 

Vain  Virtues 

II. 

The  Portrait 

87. 

Lost  Days 

12. 

The  Love-Letter 

88. 

Death's  Songsters 

17- 

A  Day  of  Love 

92. 

Lost  on  Both  Sides 

22. 

Love-Sweetness 

93- 

The  Sun's  Shame,     i. 

24. 

Love's  Baubles 

98. 

A  Superscription 

26. 

Winged  Hours 

49. 

Death-in-Love 

39- 

The  Morrow's  Message 

37. 

Life-in-Love 

40. 

Sleepless  Dreams 

38- 

The  Love-Moon 

46. 

Secret  Parting 

50  to  53.     Willow-Wood 

47. 

Parted  Love 

56. 

Stillborn  Love 

83. 

Hoarded  Joy 

69. 

A  Dark  Day 

84. 

Barren  Spring 

328 


NOTES 


Between  1870  and  1881 


NO 

NO. 

30 

The  Moonstar 

44. 

Love  and  Hope 

31 

Last  Fire 

45- 

Cloud  and  Wind 

32 

Her  Gifts 

54- 

Without  Her 

33 

Equal  Troth 

S5- 

Love's  Fatality 

34 

Venus  Victrix 

81. 

From  Dawn  to  Noon 

35 

The  Dark  Glass 

97- 

Life  the  Beloved 

36 

The  Lamp's  Shrine 

41. 

Severed  Selves 

21 

Gracious  Moonlight 

42. 

Through  Death  to  Love 

I 

Love  Enthroned 

61. 

Transfigured  Life 

S 

Heart's  Hope 

67. 

The  Heart  of  the  Night 

9 

Love's  Lovers 

82. 

Memorial  Thresholds 

13 

The  Lovers'  Walk 

89. 

Hero's  Lamp 

H 

Youth's  Antiphony 

90. 

The  Trees  of  the  Garden 

15 

Youth's  Spring-tribute 

94. 

The  Sun's  Shame.     11. 

18 

Beauty's  Pageant 

62. 

The  Song  Throe 

19 

Genius  in  Beauty 

63. 

The  Soul's  Sphere 

20 

Silent  Noon 

65. 

Ardour  and  Memory 

23 

Heart's  Haven 

57  to  59.     True  Woman 

27 

Mid-Rapture 

60. 

Love's  Last  Gift 

28 

Heart's  Compass 

Introductory  Sonnet 

29 

Soul-light 

25- 

Pride  of  Youth 

43 

Hope  Overtaken 

95- 

Michelangelo's  Kiss 

The  Recollections  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  the  work  of  the  friend 
of  his  closing  days,  Mr.  Hall  Caine,  shows  that  the  author  regarded 
Still-born  Love,  Known  in  Vain,  Lost  Days  and  The  One  Hope  (Nos. 
56,  66,  87  and  102),  as  about  the  best  of  the  series. 

AT  THE  SUNRISE  IN  1848 

My  brother  never  published  this  sonnet.  It  is  not  of  his  best;  yet, 
as  it  openly  proclaims  that  he  shared  the  aspirations  and  exultations  of 


*  These  two  sonnets  were  written  respectively  for  Rossetti's  pictures  entitled  Sibylla 
Palmifera  and  Lilith.  They  might  therefore,  if  he  had  not  himself  embodied  them  in  Th4 
House  of  Life,  have  appeared  appropriately  in  the  section  of  the  present  book  named  Sonnets 
and  Verses  for  Rossetti's  awn  Works  of  A  rt. 


NOTES 

the  great  year  of  European  revolution,  I  have  thought  the  personal 
interest  attaching  to  the  sonnet  to  be  such  as  to  entitle  it  to  something 
better  than  final  oblivion. 

AUTUMN  SONG 

This  lyric  was  set  to  music  by  Mr.  Dannreuther  during  my  brother's 
lifetime,  and  was  published  in  that  form  —  though  not  otherwise.  I 
have  therefore  felt  no  hesitation  in  including  it  among  his  collected 
works.  As  to  the  next  following  lyric,  TAe  Lady's  Lament •>  which 
had  hitherto  been  wholly  unpublished,  I  did  hesitate;  but  I  finally 
admitted  it,  as  being  a  somewhat  marked  performance  of  its  class. 
The  class  is  the  same  as  with  the  Autumn  Song;  each  being  the  utter- 
ance of  a  dreamy  or  indeed  morbid  mood  of  desolation  to  which  the 
youth  of  our  modern  generations  is  prone. 

A  TRIP  TO  PARIS  AND  BELGIUM 

In  the  autumn  of  1849  my  brother  undertook  this  trip  along  with 
Mr.  Holman  Hunt.  He  wrote  the  verses  mostly  while  actually  travel- 
ling by  rail,  etc.,  and  sent  them  in  his  letters  to  me.  Under  the  above 
heading  I  have  pieced  together  such  portions  of  his  verse-missives  as 
appear  to  me  worthy  of  preservation  in  the  present  form.  Much  the 
same  observation  applies  to  the  two  ensuing  sonnets.  The  Staircase  of 
Notre  Dame,  Paris,  and  On  Leaving  Bruges;  and  to  the  lyric.  Near 
Brussels,  a  Halfway  Pause.  The  sonnet,  Place  de  la  Bastille,  Paris, 
belongs  to  the  same  series;  it  is  the  only  one  of  the  set  which  my 
brother  published  in  one  of  his  volumes  (^Ballads  and  Sonnets).  The 
lyric  Antwerp  and  Bruges  is  an  altered  version  (as  I  find  it  in  his  own 
MS.)  of  The  Carillon,  which  was  printed  in  The  Germ. 

VOX  ECCLESI^  VOX  CHRISTI 

This  sonnet,  hitherto  unpublished,  was  written  in  1849.  ^7  brother 
wrote  it  to  serve  as  a  pendent  to  a  sonnet  of  my  own  composition, 
which  was  published  in  The  Germ,  1850,  under  the  vague  title  The 
Evil  under  the  Sun  ("How  long,  O  Lord,"  etc.).  That  title  was 
vamped  up  to  appease  the  publisher's  nervousness ;  the  sonnet  being 
in  fact  written  by  me  as  a  sorrowful  commemoration  of  the  collapse  — 
the  temporary  collapse,  as  we  now  know  it  to  have  been  —  of  various 


NOTES 

revolutionary  movements  in  Europe,  especially  that  of  Hungary.  My 
own  title  for  the  sonnet  was  On  the  General  Oppression  of  the  Better 
by  the  Worse  Cause,  October  1849.  The  sonnet  has  of  late  years  been 
more  than  once  republished  under  a  more  generalized  title,  Democracy 
Downtrodden.  I  mention  these  facts,  not  to  thrust  my  own  perform- 
ance into  notice,  but  to  bring  out  the  more  clearly  the  precise  point  of 
view  which  marks  my  brother's  sonnet. 

THE  MIRROR 

Written  in  1850.  My  brother  never  published  this  snatch  of  verse, 
but  he  had  a  certain  liking  for  it,  and  I  think  it  should  now  find  a 
niche  among  his  works. 

DURING  MUSIC 

Written  in  1851.     Hitherto  unpublished. 

ON  THE  SITE  OF  A  MULBERRY-TREE,  ETC. 

My  brother  had  this  sonnet  printed  long  ago,  but  never  published  it 
except  in  the  Academy  for  15  February  1871.  In  the  last  line  he 
substituted  (in  MS.)  the  word  "Starveling's"  for  "tailor's;"  and  I 
remember  he  once  told  me  that  his  real  reason  for  not  publishing  the 
sonnet  in  either  of  his  volumes  was  to  avoid  hurting  the  feelings  of 
some  sensitive  member  or  members  of  the  tailoring  craft  who  might 
dislike  the  line  in  its  original  wording.  This  point  is  referred  to  in  a 
letter  addressed  by  my  brother  to  Mr.  Hall  Caine,  and  published  in 
that  gentleman's  Recollections  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 

ON  CERTAIN  ELIZABETHAN  REVIVALS 

This  sonnet  had  hitherto  appeared  only  in  Mr.  Caine's  volume 
above-mentioned.  My  brother  had  offered  it  for  collection,  Sonnets  of 
Three  Centuries,  compiled  by  Mr.  Caine ;  but  it  dropped  out  of  that 
book,  as  being  little  in  harmony  with  the  other  contributions  therein 
by  Rossetti.  The  sonnet  was  written  many  years  prior  to  the  date  of 
either  of  Mr.  Caine's  volumes. 


NOTES 

ENGLISH  MAY 

This  sonnet  had  not  hitherto  been  published.  I  regard  it  as 
addressed  to  Miss  Siddal,  whom  my  brother  married  in  i860.  Its  date 
may  probably  have  been  1854. 

DAWN  ON  THE  NIGHT-JOURNEY 

Also  hitherto  unpublished. 

TO  PHILIP  BOURKE  MARSTON 

This  sonnet  was  printed  in  Mr.  William  Sharp's  book,  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossettt,  a  Record  and  a  Study.  In  line  4  he  gives  the  word 
*' sight."  In  the  MS.  in  my  own  possession  I  find  "light"  instead; 
but  I  incline  to  think  that  Mr.  Sharp's  version  is  correct. 

RALEIGH'S  CELL  IN  THE  TOWER 

This  sonnet  was  published  in  Mr.  Caine's  Sonnets  of  Three 
Centuries. 

FOR  AN  ANNUNCIATION,  EARLY  GERMAN 

This  is  an  early  sonnet,  hitherto  unpublished  —  perhaps  the  earliest 
of  all  the  Sonnets  on  Pictures. 

FOR  A  VIRGIN  AND  CHILD,  by  Hand  Memmelinck  ;  and 
A  MARRIAGE  OF  ST.  CATHERINE,  by  the  Same 

These  sonnets  were  published  in  The  Germ;  I  have  thought  it,  on 
the  whole,  better  to  admit  them  here.  A  few  verbal  alterations  are 
made  on  MS.  authority. 

MARY'S  GIRLHOOD 

The  picture  to  which  these  sonnets  relate  was  the  first  oil-painting, 
1848-49,  completed  by  my  brother.  The  concluding  lines  of  Sonnet  i, 
*'  She  woke  in  her  white  bed,"  etc.,  have  a  more  direct  connection, 
however,  with  his  second  picture.  The  Annunciation  (or  Ecce  Ancilla 
Domini^,  now  in  the  National  Gallery.  Sonnet  11  was  inscribed  by  my 
brother  on  the  frame  of  his  first  picture.  He  never  published  it  other- 
wise ;  but  it  has  been  given  in  Mr.  Sharp's  book,  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti,  etc. 


NOTES 


THE  CHURCH  PORCHES,  II 

Sonnet  i  was  published  by  my  brother  in  the  volume  Ballads  and 
Sonnets.  It  was  written  as  one  of  a  brace  of  sonnets.  He  never  pub- 
lished the  second ;  but  this  is  to  be  found  in  an  article,  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti,  by  Mr.  Gosse,  printed  in  The  Century  Magazine  in  1882.  I  am 
rather  reluctant  to  miss  out  that  second  sonnet;  but,  as  my  brother 
saw  fit  to  leave  it  unused  when  he  gave  publicity  to  the  first,  I  have 
decided  to  conform.  [It  is  reprinted  in  the  present  edition  on 
page  301.] 

MICHAEL  SCOTT'S  WOOING 

My  brother  made  two  or  three  drawings  of  this  subject  of  invention, 
diverse  in  composition.  He  contemplated  carrying  out  the  subject  in 
a  large  picture,  which  was  never  executed ;  I  am  not  certain  whether  a 
water-colour  of  it  was  produced  or  not.  He  took  some  pains  over  the 
wording  of  the  illustrative  verse,  but  never  published  it.  I  think  it 
deserves  a  place  here,  if  merely  as  appertaining  to  one  of  his  own 
designs. 

MNEMOSYNE 

This  couplet  was  inscribed  upon  the  frame  of  the  picture  entitled 
Mnemosyne^  or  the  Lamp  of  Memory. 

ROBE  D'OR,  ETC. 

This  French  couplet  with  its  English  equivalent  —  and  also  the  pre- 
ceding Italian  triplet  with  the  like  —  may,  I  think,  have  been  written 
to  serve  as  motto  for  some  picture ;  I  could  not  say  which. 

BARCAROLA 

The  two  little  songs  thus  entitled  had  not  hitherto  been  published ; 
nor  yet  the  Bambino  Fasciato  nor  La  Ricordanza. 

THOM^  FIDES 

It  is  only  on  looking  through  my  brother's  MSS.  that  I  have  become 
aware  of  his  having  ventured  thus  into  the  realm  of  Latin  verse.  I  find 
the  little  composition  written  out  more  than  once,  and  with  alterations 

333 


NOTES 

of  diction  which  convince  me  that  it  must  be  his  own  composition.  It 
was  intended  to  appear  in  a  "  lyrical  tragedy,"  The  Doom  of  the  Sirens, 
of  which  he  wrote  out  the  scheme. 

VERSICLES  AND  FRAGMENTS 

I  have  taken  these  from  among  various  jottings  in  my  brother's 
notebooks.  The  first  item,  named  The  Orchard-Pit,  is  all  that  I  can 
find  written  of  a  poem  which  was  long  and  seriously  projected :  the 
argument  of  the  poem  appears  printed  now  among  the  Prose  works. 
Of  the  other  items  I  need  perhaps  say  nothing,  unless  it  be  this  —  that, 
slight  as  they  are,  they  appear  to  me  worthy  of  preservation  on  one 
ground  or  another.  I  do  not  think  that  any  of  the  Versicles  and  Frag- 
ments belong  to  my  brother's  earlier  period. 

CAPITOLO— A.  M.  Salvini  to  Francesco  Redi 

Hitherto  unpublished.  This  must  be  a  very  early  specimen  of  my 
brother's  translating-work  —  I  think  1847  or  1848. 

TWO  LYRICS  FROM  NICCOLO  TOMMASEO 

Thesd  are  also  very  early.  When  Tommaseo's  death  was  announced, 
Rossetti  sent  them  to  the  AthencBum  (13  June,  1874),  with  the  following 
prefatory  lines  : —  "In  your  late  obituary  notice  {Athenceum,  May  16), 
of  Niccol6  Tommaseo,  a  passing  allusion  is  made  to  his  earlier  lyrical 
poetry.  Any  countryman  of  his,  looking,  years  ago  when  it  appeared, 
into  the  slender  collection  of  these  verses,  must  have  been  struck  by 
their  not  being  chiefly  concerned  with  public  events  and  interests ; 
inevitably  a  rare  exception  in  those  dark  yearning-days  of  the  Italian 
Muse.  Perhaps  the  two  translated  specimens  which  I  offer  of  their 
delicate  and  romantic  tone  may  not  be  unacceptable  to  some  of  your 
readers." 

TWO  SONGS  FROM  VICTOR  HUGO'S  "BURGRAVES" 

These  translations  also,  hitherto  unpublished,  are  very  early  per- 
formances —  perhaps  1847. 

334 


NOTES 

LILITH  FROM  GOTHE 

When  my  brother  was  projecting  his  picture  oi  Lilith,  towards  1866, 
he  asked  me  to  copy  out  for  him  the  lines  from  the  Brocken-scene  in 
Fatist,  along  with  Shelley's  translation  of  them.  I  did  so.  I  find  my 
transcript  pasted  into  one  of  his  note-books,  along  with  this  quatrain 
as  translated  by  himself.  As  it  has  some  interest  of  association,  I 
reproduce  it  here. 


IHTDCD  ^P|^  '  2  74-K)AM 


95»Iia>| 


b\*J 


^4Dec'&3KVi         f'' 


.     &bA4J|B^WJWI  8  77 


1953  I  y 


PR  3  0 1954  Lf 
^     9Nov'i4Bi> 


0ECl6t3S5 


,0  21-1"°"' 


R 

4ftH15'66 

UOAN  DEPT. 


U.C.  BERKELEY   LIBRARIES 


CDainbmaD 


/< 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


